134 replies to this topic

[Alex Libman]

From the "Governments are taking over and will bankrupt us all, per Marc Faber" thread:

Alex, if I'm stuck in XX century thinking, then you are stuck in XXV century and already in that Titan base of yours. Libertarianism may be a kick ass ideology, just not with this world.

Why did you pick the 25th century - where did the number come from? (Unless that's a reference to Firefly, of course, but that takes place in the year 2517 and thus the 26th century.) There is such a thing as growth momentum, but the passage of time does not influence society in of itself, and not at a constant rate - it is possible for a more economically productive society to achieve in a few decades all of the scientific and technological advancements that would take centuries in another society, while a third society might collapse into a dystopian dark age (for which government failure is the only cause that I can imagine). I think a more reasonable time-frame for a massive shift to libertarianism would be the late 21st / early 22nd century, but the seeds for that transition have to be planted today.

The Titan base was obviously a joke (which was accentuated by a very fitting animated smiley of a smiley-head guy trying to fly by waving two tree branches as wings, as if to ridicule obvious inability to achieve one's high aspirations, but then the freesmileys.org server hosting that image went down - a blow from which my comedic legacy may never recover). Before we have spacesteading we need to have seasteading or private land secession, and before we have that we need to shame the governments into not sending in the navy / tanks to blockade, arrest, or "waco" us. Some libertarians will "plant the seeds" by working within the political system (ex. Ron Paul, NHLA, etc), some through mild civil disobedience, some through serious tax resistance, some through endless Internet trolling, some by simply homeschooling their children to live them a very good education with emphasis on capitalism and libertarian philosophy, and so on. Rome wasn't built in a day...

In a surge of sincerity Milton Friedman said once ( and forgive me for not providing a link to that ) that Capitalism is livable exactly as it's not a meritocracy, because if it was, it would be psychologically unbereable to those on the lower level - they would only have theirselves to blame. If the whole world went libertarian tomorrow ( Libertarianism - real Capitalism ) then we would be on our way to social Ragnarok and not the planet becoming New Hampshire.

Milton Friedman quotations are starting to remind me of the book Misquoting Jesus - and both sides are quite guilty of this. To be fair, here's my favorite example of a libertarian paraphrasing Milton Friedman: "without the current inefficiencies brought about by government controls, per capita income could reach $300,000 per year, without altering anything else in the economy". I haven't been able to confirm the source on that either (my alias on the linked thread was "Phant" for a while), but it would be economically plausible if the point of divergence between is pushed back by a few decades.

So I would like to see the actual quote to explain it better, but Milton Friedman wasn't exactly a principled libertarian, at least not in his public life (his son David and his grandson Patri are both very accomplished Anarcho-Capitalist thinkers). Milton was a good economist who understood the power of the free market, but he nonetheless was tied to government force and often used his knowledge to aid evil. I wouldn't put him in the same league of greatness as the best of the "Austrian School" economists that preceded him. (Note that the Wikipedia article I'm linking to is incredibly biased, but I still prefer to link to sources that cannot be accused of being biased in my favor, and there's still plenty you can learn from that article to understand where I stand - the criticisms presented there are addressed elsewhere.)

Ironically the best debunking of "meritocracy" comes from another minarchist whose economic ideas were very similar to Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand. She wrote: "by means of nothing more than its last five letters, that word obliterates the difference between mind and force - it equates the men of ability with political rulers, and the power of their creative achievements with political power".

On this issue an Anarcho-Capitalist may be reminded of why he kept that inconvenient A-word in the title of his personal philosophy, as opposed to simply calling it "pure free market capitalism" - AnCaps believe that all "rational economic actors" are equal in their negative Rights, and no one man should have political power over another. Of course some men are born taller than others, and some come to accumulate more capital, but that doesn't mean Richard Branson or Glenn Jacobs should have any political power over a homeless midget!

Now I do believe that there is a strong correlation between merit and wealth, but wealth isn't everything. Money can be applied to do good things, but that isn't the same thing as buying one's reputation - some things simply cannot be bought.

The inclusive, democratic state is the one thing keeping us couple of feet above the everflowing river of shit.

Democracy is just a system of marketing tyranny to a modern audience. Power exists for its own sake. What keeps any society a "couple of feet above the ever-flowing river of shit" is the fact that the overwhelming majority of individuals don't want to be in that river, and don't want to be perceived as pushing others into it. In a sufficiently advanced civilization this naturally leads to the Non-Aggression Principle emerging on issues of defending what's rightfully yours (i.e. life, liberty, property), and aiding others in their pursuit of justice lest those criminals aggress against you next. The same reputation-based system of incentives also leads to politeness, charity, natalism, and other aspects of "universally preferable behavior". The vast majority of the elements that push a modern society toward that river exist by the "divine right" of government force!

[...] reductio ad sovietum [...] Somalia [...]

See above.


(I will debunk more of Chris W's barely coherent and repetitive rants later, for the moment I just cannot spare any more time.)

Edited by Alex Libman, 21 May 2010 - 06:25 AM.

[chris w]

(I will debunk more of Chris W's barely coherent and repetitive rants later, for the moment I just cannot spare any more time.)

Alex dear, don't boder anymore, you rarely manage to address the issue at hand ( like you never wrote anything smart about the social darwinist aspect of Ayn Rand that I so much hate - you just said that thing about "gay guys trying to talk sports" ), you just jump to your ussuall and just as repetitive ( you need to write about "The Rights" at least one time in every post ) ideological rants filled with not really on topic universal reflections like the one about non existence of old happy socialists ( which I hereby debunk with my grandma, ta dam !! ), that are supposed to show how great Libertarianism is or somehow make me an acomplice of American government ( I mean ... "blood on my hands" ? That's a little out there, talk about the "difussion of responsibility" ) persecuting members of the paranoid militias, which I'm not really sure it's so very wise for you to support if you're Jewish - read Turner Diaries ? I picked 25 century and Titan for a joke to show that Libertarianism is not an ideology fit for this particular race of entities that hang out here on Earth, other than a recipe for destruction, just like you pick random fragments of wikipedia, like "jump starting a car" or latin proverbs or articles about psychological whatnots to go together with your anecdotes from child years in USSR which you think do any good for Libertarianism, when it's history you link to an article about a book by Pat Buchanan, whom I don't really remember having the credentials to debunk historical myths, when you want to show that Ayn Rand was right about something, you link to "Ayn Rand's Dictionary" and so on.

About Somalia - so basically now you only have to make those "orphaned" Somalians not to be so war lordish and so religiously fanatical and so tribal, and make them respect your NAP and other Rights, attract the brains etc etc, and when they are ready - Anarcho Capitalism will finally show it's true beauty in full swing, yeyy ! Like you said, there are no good existing examples of Anarcho - Capitalism, but I'm sure there will be, I'm sure.

From your comparison of Roosevelt to Hitler and your notes on Germany's genocide, where you showed not to know shit about XX century history, I really cannot take you that serious anymore, from what I see in different threads ( like the the way you talked with Valkyrie Ice in Politics of Regulation ) that's your everyday style of discusion. Hope you will do ok with the eyes, Lutein, that's my choice for years now, cheers.

Edited by chris w, 21 May 2010 - 12:41 PM.

[JLL]

Actually, I think he's addressing the issue at hand very precisely -- it's just that you are not willing to pause and think about what's being said.

Every time you vote, you get blood on your hands.

[chris w]

Every time you vote, you get blood on your hands.

Oh, ok

[TianZi]

The OP's misunderstanding of political and economic theory, as well as world history, renders the conclusions reached from such misconceptions similarly flawed.

There may come a day in a distant post-singularity future when people will by and large govern themselves. But that's not now, or anytime in the foreseeable future. The writings of Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes are every bit as relevant today as they were centuries in the past.

But that's the extent to which I am able to engage in a conversation in this thread. Serious comparisons of FDR to Hitler are the sort of Tea Party ravings I'd prefer not to see here. Debating this is no different in my mind from debating whether a man actually lived for weeks in a fish as religious fundamentalists believe.

Worse was this:

"The Jews would have been resettled somewhere outside Germany, which has been the plan up to the point where Anglo-American intervention made it impossible." So the OP also apologist for the Nazi regime who blames outside intervention for the genocide in Germany. Nice, and a good reminder of why I as a rule do not visit this particular subforum.

Edited by TianZi, 23 May 2010 - 07:26 AM.

[Alex Libman]

I've had a very good understanding of mainstream political theory, mainstream economic theory, and the mainstream view of world history at an earlier point in my life, but my opinions on those matters have shifted in light of exposure to new evidence and new ideas that are not popularly known precisely because they threaten the power structure of our current society. You have forgone any specific criticism of those new ideas, and merely reiterated your rejection of them, which adds no constructive substantive to this conversation. I understand the mainstream views that you seem to be defending, but do you really understand my views and the scientific reasoning they are based on?

Calling an Anarcho-Capitalist an "apologist for the Nazi regime" just might be the highest conceivable form of unintended irony - it is you who is being an apologist for the Stalin and the FDR regimes (etc) by failing to compare those political situations objectively. Everything that I wrote here about concentration camps is based on historical facts and historically neutral extrapolations from them (which is quite difficult for me because members of my extended family have perished in such camps). Everything that you wrote can only be described as petty and politically-biased attempts to insult.

You are defending politically driven conjecture backed by violence. I am defending an idea for an empirical approach to politics and economics, where you may keep your present governments if you so choose but others would be able to opt out at will. Why is it that your system only works when you restrict people's access to new ideas, as is the case with the mainstream presentation of history, and your political and economic theories only work when you impose those systems on everyone by force?

[Alex Libman]

I'll take a few more juicy nibbles at Chris W, this time from the "Libertarian Rand Paul, Do You Like What He Stands For?" thread (moved here since I do not support R* Paul):

I can get along with progressive libertarians, to me you guys are just wrong on the starting point but still belong in the forces of MiddleEarth nevertheless, but a libertarian and social conservatist is a marriage made in Mordor, and where I live that's pretty much the only type.

All libertarians / capitalists are progressive (they push the civilization forward), and all socialists / statists are regressive (they hold the civilization back).

Hmm, kind of like Marx discovering "The Immutable Laws of History".

You are making a mistake identical to the mistake of saying "science is just another religion". Science is a process specifically chosen for the purpose of pursuing the objective truth, which is what makes it different from religion, which is a social phenomena motivated by collectivism, emotion, and often the desire to take advantage. Likewise, my philosophy (and the philosophies it borrows from) owes its first allegiance to the truth, and arrives at conclusions like individualism, property rights, non-aggression, etc by the same route the empirical inquiry into the nature of reality results in scientific method. Not all libertarians / capitalists follow the same principled philosophy, but their identification as such is based on their proximity to that philosophy as opposed to the social norm.

I do have to give Marx a bit of credit at least for adjusting his own philosophy a bit within his lifetime (then again Jesus and Mohammad have as well), but it was at most a single step toward truth while his philosophy needed a thousand. Marx started with his emotions and wishful thinking, and he tried to use a lot of Germanogibberisheconobabble to dress them up, but only the people who shared his emotions and wishful thinking found that useful - no one else has ever considered him a serious thinker, not even within Communist countries themselves. Marx was the "old testament" of the divinely revealed prayer book for Soviet lower and middle management, nothing more. Blind faith can happen to be correct by accident or natural selection, but faith in Marxism is contradicted by everything that has ever been observed in the real world, and can therefore be described as having a regressive effect on civilization, which can also be said of watered-down forms of Marxism (ex. socialism / statism) as well.

Edited by Alex Libman, 24 May 2010 - 04:02 PM.

[EmbraceUnity]

Arthur Jensen: [bellowing] You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE!
Arthur Jensen: [calmly] Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Howard Beale: Why me?
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.
Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

This is all bullshit. These corporate entities are all creatures of the state, and "disruption" of them by people speaking their mind is not actually disruption but simply the consequence of freedom of speech... since most people are not autistic economics geeks. Also, like most right-libertarians, you often exhibit knee-jerk pro-business tendencies as opposed to pro-market tendencies.

Though I do think your take on the movie Avatar is a bit refreshing compared to other hypocrit-itarians, assuming you would extend that analysis to conflicts with tribal peoples in the Amazon and elsewhere.

I would like you to admit to me that you are just asserting the NAP to be empirically derived for utilitarian or tempermental reasons, even if only by private message, since there is absolutely no basis whatsoever to make this claim.

[EmbraceUnity]

Here is what I mean about the NAP not being empirical in any sense.

Just as babies are not inherently cute, but rather that certain beings' brains are wired to perceive them as cute, the NAP is not inherently good, but rather certain beings are wired to perceive it as such. Being a non-autistic, I would not be in that group. "Natural" Rights are nonsense on stilts.

Edited by progressive, 24 May 2010 - 08:30 PM.

[EmbraceUnity]

Oh and by the way, that Network quote perfectly illustrates one of the tyrannical centralizing tendencies of capitalism.

And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

This is no different than the idea of the Pullman Town which I already explained in another post. It is basically indistinguishable from stalinism or "state capitalism." Some libertarians have noticed this in reaction to the movie Wall-E.

Edited by progressive, 25 May 2010 - 03:50 AM.

[Alex Libman]

These corporate entities are all creatures of the state, and "disruption" of them by people speaking their mind is not actually disruption but simply the consequence of freedom of speech... since most people are not autistic economics geeks. Also, like most right-libertarians, you often exhibit knee-jerk pro-business tendencies as opposed to pro-market tendencies.

You seem to be confusing me with someone else... (Leonard Peikoff perhaps? I know all us Jews capitalists may look alike from a distance, but this is ridiculous! Some of our philosophy is similar, but there are some very important differences!)

I am an Anarcho-Capitalist. I support the gradual abolishment of the state and thus of most things that define modern corporations: corporate welfare, limited liability, intellectual property, the military-industrial complex and violent imperialism (ex. Israel), regulations and tax incentives that greatly favor large businesses over small, etc, etc, etc.

Though I do think your take on the movie Avatar is a bit refreshing compared to other hypocrit-itarians, assuming you would extend that analysis to conflicts with tribal peoples in the Amazon and elsewhere.

There are several problems with applying the Avatar example to the politics of the Native Peoples here on Earth. The first problem is that the harm that was done on this planet is already done, in many cases centuries ago, and imposing punishment or restitution on the descendants of those people would not constitute justice. The Federal government should give them sovereignty, but no private land or wealth (ex. tax money) should be transferred to them.

Most importantly, rights belong to individuals, not tribes. Most native tribes (contrary to their portrayal in the movies) rarely spent more than a couple of years without migration (which often reshuffled all apparent property claims), ritualized brutality, and war. You cannot recognize Rights across incompatible cultures, and in many cases the cultures were so incompatible they didn't really understand the agreements they were getting into. The exact details of who said or misunderstood what are now lost to human history.

I'd like to insert that the more recent examples of colonialism, like the native Arab population of Israel, are clearly unacceptable, because those people had clear Property Rights that were reduced or invalidated after a government was imposed on them by force. I often use the example of Israel as the absolute worst way to carry out political migration, and propose private property secession as a much better alternative.

Another thing you need to understand is that if the Rights of the natives were fully recognized, the outcome would be better for them, but not drastically better. There would still be incentives for trade - the appeal of "light beer and blue jeans" does have a way of growing on you, and if not those things than something else, like I've said on the Avatar thread: "science, medicine, parachutes, toilet paper, art, literature, cuisine, music, cyber-porn, pot, etc, etc, etc". There would be gradual encroachment of ideas and willingness to trade, and the native culture would gradually be transformed as the result, because the more technological cultures usually have a lot more to offer.

I would like you to admit to me that you are just asserting the NAP to be empirically derived for utilitarian or tempermental reasons, even if only by private message, since there is absolutely no basis whatsoever to make this claim.

No, my understanding of Natural Law (aka Natural Rights, Prime Directive, Non-Aggression Principle, etc) is 100% empirical to the best of my ability.

For example, I've contemplated the possibility of altering my understanding of Natural Law to use force in order to raise fertility rates, but then I've decided that it wouldn't be necessary as fertility rates would rise back up in a society that would simultaneously be relatively rational, prosperous, and free. I'm also very much open to arguments in favor of intellectual property, environmental regulation, forced immunization, and so on, but clear evidence for their benefit is yet to be presented.

[EmbraceUnity]

You seem to be confusing me with someone else... (Leonard Peikoff perhaps? I know all us Jews capitalists may look alike from a distance, but this is ridiculous! Some of our philosophy is similar, but there are some very important differences!)

Dude, just yesterday you were being an apologist for BP. Likewise you like to promote climate denialism in order to win props from your status group, but it really just serves the interests of big corporations to push their costs onto others.

I am an Anarcho-Capitalist. I support the gradual abolishment of the state and thus of most things that define modern corporations: corporate welfare, limited liability, intellectual property, the military-industrial complex and violent imperialism (ex. Israel), regulations and tax incentives that greatly favor large businesses over small, etc, etc, etc.

Maybe, but there are some things you emphasize, and usually you are too busy whoring yourself for the likes of BP to get around to ranting about corporate personhood.

There are several problems with applying the Avatar example to the politics of the Native Peoples here on Earth. The first problem is that the harm that was done on this planet is already done, in many cases centuries ago, and imposing punishment or restitution on the descendants of those people would not constitute justice. The Federal government should give them sovereignty, but no private land or wealth (ex. tax money) should be transferred to them.

So I suppose all the art that was stolen in the holocaust and returned to the children of survivors should never have been returned? I thought property rights were "eternal" and "universal" and "objective" ?!?!

Also, there are still plenty of tribal peoples who are being stolen from to this day. Not to mention the peasants who are being dispossessed by Tata Motors and so on.

You cannot recognize Rights across incompatible cultures, and in many cases the cultures were so incompatible they didn't really understand the agreements they were getting into.

So much for universal, eternal, and objective rights.

Edited by progressive, 25 May 2010 - 07:45 AM.

[Alex Libman]

Here is what I mean about the NAP not being empirical in any sense.

Just as babies are not inherently cute, but rather that certain beings' brains are wired to perceive them as cute, the NAP is not inherently good, but rather certain beings are wired to perceive it as such. Being a non-autistic, I would not be in that group. "Natural" Rights are nonsense on stilts.

I am very much aware of supernormal stimuli, and I have written extensively about the need to overcome our monkey-brain hard-wiring and think rationally about things like reproduction / sex, food, humor, pets / cuteness, etc, etc, etc.

This has nothing to do with the Non-Aggression Principle, however, which you seem to have mistaken for some form of emotional pacifism!

NAP emerges out of "enlightened self-interest" the same way the price mechanism and all other natural economic phenomena do: everybody wants to rule the world, but almost nobody wants to die trying.

I am quite capable and motivated to use deadly force in defense of myself and my property - and I might even shoot and/or arrest a burglar breaking into my neighbor's house as well lest he comes after me next, which is the heroic Anarcho-Capitalist ideal. In the real world, however, most of the shooting and arresting would probably be done by specialized professionals (private defense agencies), and a restitution-based justice system (as well as absence of "the thin blue line" to limit liabilities) would encourage use of less-lethal weapons and other new self-defense technologies.

I am anti-war in the sense of one government taking over another and imposing its order at the expense of stolen trillions, but I would have very much liked to see Saddam Hussein's head materialize on a pike in some capitalist oil company's WHQ lobby the moment he tried to steal their property. Kill All Commies, Kill All Commies, Rah Rah Rah!

Oh and by the way, that Network quote perfectly illustrates one of the tyrannical centralizing tendencies of capitalism.

That screenplay is a work of its author and a commentary on 1970s America, not on free market capitalism, which is in no way centralized.

This is no different than the idea of the Pullman Town which I already explained in another post. It is basically indistinguishable from stalinism or "state capitalism." Some libertarians have noticed this in reaction to the movie Wall-E.

I don't like Pullman Towns, but I don't want to outlaw them either (this is the rational libertarian attitude toward most things, as you'll discover). As I've previously explained, the Pullman Towns were voluntary, and thus in no way comparable to a state in any form - much less Stalinism, which was involuntary, a lot more ruthless, and controlled the lives of ~50,000 times more people! No one was ever born an employee of George Pullman, and if his working conditions or products were as bad as the Soviet Union's then he wouldn't stay in business for long!

Pullman Towns were also inefficient, just like the "job for life" policies that were traditional in Japanese corporatism that they're now moving away from. Optimal value comes from finding the best person for any particular job out of the billions that are out there, not trying to figure out how to put your existing employees to their optimal use. Having a job for life also leads to intellectual laziness, resistance to innovation, and corruption. All employees living in the same isolated town can at times also be counterproductive due to the existence of localism and other consumer biases: your own employees may be enthusiastic about your products, but everyone else will see them like a cult and your products as something from a foreign culture, and thus avoid them.

I recently came across this poll on Slashdot -- which asked "I suspect my current job will end when ..." and the choices were "I get fired", "I quit", "I die on the job", etc -- and I commented with this rant:

Subject: In 21st century people have "clients", not "jobs"!

Get with the times, Slashdot!

This poll has very limited choices, most of which shouldn't apply to a modern-day IT worker (office babysitters and network plumbers excluded). Pretty much all programming, DBA, design, CAx, writing, and other types of work is most efficiently done outside of the old "clock in at 9, clock out at 5" job paradigm, which will soon be obsolete for most other types of jobs as well.

Your skills are the most valuable when they are specialized and available on demand, which usually means maintaining relationships with dozens of clients at the same time. You take one project from one employer, another project from another employer, etc - and you often juggle 3-5 projects at the same time if you're working full time, or just 0-2 projects at a time if you're working part time while you're at school, retired (everyone comes out of retirement occasionally if the project is easy and the pay is good), etc.

Anarcho-Capitalists glorify individual ownership of the means of production, not "public" and not corporate!

This is where Objectivists and AnCaps disagree on aesthetics: Objectivists like skyscrapers and steak imported from Chile, while AnCaps tend to like the Shire from LotR (except with magical creatures like robots to do the farming and all the other physical labors for us). Neither aesthetic represents technological superiority: in fact densely populated cities were a result of scarcity of access to resources, and things like omnipresent Internet access, cheap energy, fast flying cars, flying package delivery robots, efficient solar panels, robotized agriculture, domes, etc make rural living a lot more enjoyable.

In many cases there's still a trade-off: growing all of your own food is still economically inefficient, but it ensures your food supply chain is always nearby and you can keep a close eye on its quality. Living in a neighborhood association is cheaper because you get to pool resources for things like security, water, sewage, roads, and so on. As previously stated, people do have a Right to form communes and corporations, but those institutions can only leverage the Rights of the people who choose to participate, not rule by a "divine right" that socialists and other statists claim to have! It is up to each individual to decide if he wants to grow his own food or buy from somebody else, to work as a freelancer (like me) or as a corporate office rat, to live on an independent plot of land / seastead / Firefly-class spaceship or in a neighborhood association / densely populated space station, etc, etc, etc.

Edited by Alex Libman, 25 May 2010 - 08:59 AM.

[JLL]

Likewise you like to promote climate denialism in order to win props from your status group, but it really just serves the interests of big corporations to push their costs onto others.

The biggest profits are to be made precisely by promoting climate warming, not climate denialism. And I'm not talking just about environmental groups but big corporations.

[Alex Libman]

You seem to be confusing me with someone else... (Leonard Peikoff perhaps? I know all us Jews capitalists may look alike from a distance, but this is ridiculous! Some of our philosophy is similar, but there are some very important differences!)

Dude, just yesterday you were being an apologist for BP. Likewise you like to promote climate denialism in order to win props from your status group, but it really just serves the interests of big corporations to push their costs onto others.

I was never an apologist for BP; I was always an apologist for free market capitalism. The British Petroleum Company wouldn't even exist in the free society, and neither would Britain as a centralized ruler of all the Shires of England and beyond! What I did is pointed out a list of facts why this oil spill was the government's fault, and you will now see the government cover BP's butt, which in a free society would probably have to be liquidated to pay restitution to all of their victims.

And I don't promote "climate denialism", I promote objective apolitical non-treehugger science, which is a method of philosophy, not a centralized government-ruled institution! I have explained all of the reasons why the politically driven environmentalist hysteria in unwarranted on the appropriate threads.

Maybe, but there are some things you emphasize, and usually you are too busy whoring yourself for the likes of BP to get around to ranting about corporate personhood.

"Corporate personhood" is a trivial argument that rests on the current legal context. I don't nibble on the leaves, I strike at the root! The fact that I call myself an Anarcho-Capitalist should be sufficient in explaining that I only support corporations as an extension of individual rights of the persons who comprise them, not some special "divine right" recognized through government force!

So I suppose all the art that was stolen in the holocaust and returned to the children of survivors should never have been returned?

If you had read a little bit further you would have seen that I do advocate righting the wrongs done by and to presently living individuals, where the violations of individual Rights are clearly documented.

I thought property rights were "eternal" and "universal" and "objective" ?!?!

Property Rights are only as "eternal" as the "Chain of Consciousness" that owns them. If the owner of a piece of property (or all owners, if it's a corporation) dies without contractually passing his property to others, then those resources become "unowned" and all "unowned" resources can and should be homesteaded by whoever gets there first. (Most traditions of jurisprudence will say that family members can claim the property of the deceased by default, but I'm not sure that I agree with this - how hard is it to make out a legal will, especially in a society where every marriage is an explicit contract?! A society that passes inheritance to family by default is a society where people spend too little time thinking about what's to be done with their money after their death, and a society that thinks about it more clearly will have a lot more money going to private charity, as excesses of family inheritance will come to be seen as shameful.)

Property Rights are not "universal" - trees, neanderthals / incommunicable savages, and children cannot own property, only Rational Economic Actors are capable of self-ownership, and thus the Right to / responsibility for the consequences of their actions, that is the Right to Property. (You can read more about this in the countless threads where I've talked about things like "animal rights", a child's / mental patient's / prisoner's Right to Emancipation, the gradual emergence of Natural Rights as man became more civilized, and so forth.)

Property Rights are in fact "objective", as are all aspects of Natural Law, because their recognition is a consequence of scientific inquiry into the economic history of mankind and deductive reasoning about the ideal ruleset for moving forward. (Do I really have to repeat my "evolutionary pragmatism" lecture yet again? Of course Objectivists have an even more boring epistemological system, if you're interested, but it arrives at largely the same conclusion, as do a number of other rational philosophies.)

Also, there are still plenty of <a href="http://www.treehugge...ch-england.php" target="_blank">tribal peoples[/url] who are being stolen from to this day. Not to mention the peasants who are being dispossessed by Tata Motors and so on.

You mentioned the Avatar example first, so I focused on "first contact" type situations. There definitely are many examples of governments (through corporations, churches, or otherwise) initiating aggression against individuals' Property Rights. This even happens right here in America (ex. "eminent domain"). You will find that I support property rights, every single time, no matter the wealth, nationality, race, religion, or any other attribute of the individuals involved. I even believe in robot / AI rights - if my toaster was sufficiently intelligent to be a Rational Economic Actor, then it would have the Right to charge me for toast!

You cannot recognize Rights across incompatible cultures, and in many cases the cultures were so incompatible they didn't really understand the agreements they were getting into.

So much for universal, eternal, and objective rights.

Explained above.

Just as certain phenomena of cosmology only apply to sufficiently large objects, Rights are a phenomenon of economics that only applies to entities that are Rational Economic Actors, that is beings that can be reasoned with. That doesn't mean there is one system of Laws of Physics for sub-brown dwarf stars and completely different Laws of Physics for red supergiants, but different inputs can result in drastically different results.

All healthy human beings possess the mental "hardware" to fit the criteria of Rational Economic Actors, but their mental "software" requires proper cultivation which newborn children, feral individuals, mentally ill individuals, and members of insufficiently civilized cultures might not possess. All human beings have the Right to Life and Right to Emancipation based on their hypothetical potential, but the Right to Liberty and the Right to Property require mental maturity.

Initiating trade and cooperation across barriers of understanding is very difficult, and the European colonists were particularly bad at it (perhaps because they were warriors barely surviving on those primitive ships far away from their families, which makes their impatience with other cultures understandable, but still not justified). The Arab / Muslim traders were far more humane in initiating trade with Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Indonesia, and so forth - perhaps because more of them traveled with their wives.

Edited by Alex Libman, 25 May 2010 - 10:52 AM.

[EmbraceUnity]

The British Petroleum Company wouldn't even exist in the free society, and neither would Britain as a centralized ruler of all the Shires of England and beyond! What I did is pointed out a list of facts why this oil spill was the government's fault, and you will now see the government cover BP's butt, which in a free society would probably have to be liquidated to pay restitution to all of their victims.

It wasn't all the government's fault, unless you are using your orwellian an-cap definitions again and claiming BP to be a government. Though I do very much agree that BP should be liquidated to pay for all the damage that they have caused, whose effects will continue to be uncovered for decades to come.

"Corporate personhood" is a trivial argument that rests on the current legal context. I don't nibble on the leaves, I strike at the root! The fact that I call myself an Anarcho-Capitalist should be sufficient in explaining that I only support corporations as an extension of individual rights of the persons who comprise them, not some special "divine right" recognized through government force!

You nibble on the leaves so often that one would think you're a koala bear. You complain about all sorts of policies, both large and small, but rarely is your first instinct to criticize limited liability or any such things likely since your status group would disapprove.

If you had read a little bit further you would have seen that I do advocate righting the wrongs done by and to presently living individuals, where the violations of individual Rights are clearly documented.

If returning property to the children of survivors is acceptable, then what if there is an extremely clearly documented case of theft that occurred 10 generations ago? How is that different than 2 generations? Or 3? Where is the cut-off line of reasonability? Oh right, it is all arbitrary and exists solely in your head.

Property Rights are only as "eternal" as the "Chain of Consciousness" that owns them. If the owner of a piece of property (or all owners, if it's a corporation) dies without contractually passing his property to others, then those resources become "unowned" and all "unowned" resources can and should be homesteaded by whoever gets there first.

I understand this concept, and disagree with it. Yet, in the case of theft, at no point does the property become abandoned or unused. Rothbard argued it is acceptable for people to steal from thieves, even if they don't return the item, which is pretty idiotic. It certainly wouldn't be a solution, even if every thief were stolen from, and would make enforcement of property rights needlessly difficult, especially if and when the rightful owner is found.

In the case of outright theft, then the only people who have had possession of the object would be thieves and heirs of thieves. How are they any more entitled to it after a number of generations?

If you really wanted to do your anarcho-capitalism experiment globally, along the lines of Rothbard's "Confiscation and the Homestead Principle" you'd probably need to expropriate ALL property since virtually all of it is tainted with stored-up aggression. Then you could have a nice little Year Zero from which to grow out of, in which all property accumulation will be entirely based on "merit." Sounds like a party.

A society that passes inheritance to family by default is a society where people spend too little time thinking about what's to be done with their money after their death, and a society that thinks about it more clearly will have a lot more money going to private charity, as excesses of family inheritance will come to be seen as shameful.)

I agree. Though, I think it should go towards the Basic Income by default. If that can't be achieved, giving it to family is the second best option since it allows at least some people to be able to survive without working and thus focus their creativity on the things they are interested in.

Property Rights are in fact "objective", as are all aspects of Natural Law, because their recognition is a consequence of scientific inquiry into the economic history of mankind and deductive reasoning about the ideal ruleset for moving forward. (Do I really have to repeat my "evolutionary pragmatism" lecture yet again? Of course Objectivists have an even more boring epistemological system, if you're interested, but it arrives at largely the same conclusion, as do a number of other rational philosophies.)

However, if you are a rational and compassionate person the only criterion for determining what is "ideal" is at root some form of utilitarianism. So if at base your philosophy is utilitarian, then really you admit the subjective nature of your ideology, because the hedonic calculus for the entire world is so enormous that only an artificial superintelligence could tell you what the ideal course of action is, or what the ideal ruleset is.

You will find that I support property rights, every single time, no matter the wealth, nationality, race, religion, or any other attribute of the individuals involved. I even believe in robot / AI rights - if my toaster was sufficiently intelligent to be a Rational Economic Actor, then it would have the Right to charge me for toast!

It's good that you're consistent in this way, because I can't say the same for many of your comrades. Well... I'm sure you've noticed the other libertarians here are too stupid to recognize the logical extensions of their own lines of reasoning with regard to intellectual property ad numerous other things. Though I would say you have gone down too far the other way and have a flawed understanding of anarcho-capitalism if you think copyrights are unjustifiable.

All healthy human beings possess the mental "hardware" to fit the criteria of Rational Economic Actors, but their mental "software" requires proper cultivation which newborn children, feral individuals, mentally ill individuals, and members of insufficiently civilized cultures might not possess. All human beings have the Right to Life and Right to Emancipation based on their hypothetical potential, but the Right to Liberty and the Right to Property require mental maturity.

All healthy adult human beings you mean. Except of course the time at which people reach the Age of Reason and are then capable of committing any and all sins against Man differs from person to person and doesn't just happen overnight in anyone, but happens gradually. Degeneration of one's rationality through Alzheimer's or dementia also usually happens gradually. So again, you must admit that you need to come up with arbitrary and entirely subjective rulesets, and cannot possibly come up with the ideal ruleset.

Yet even if you could, the "ideal" ruleset would only be ideal from a utilitarian angle or some other subjective ethical angle. I am a utilitarian, but at least I don't have the arrogance to assert that anything about my social beliefs are "objective." Ethics are no different than aesthetics in that your brain's wiring to like certain ethical frameworks doesn't mean those frameworks have any value outside of your mind.

Edited by progressive, 25 May 2010 - 06:13 PM.

[EmbraceUnity]

I don't like Pullman Towns, but I don't want to outlaw them either (this is the rational libertarian attitude toward most things, as you'll discover). As I've previously explained, the Pullman Towns were voluntary, and thus in no way comparable to a state in any form - much less Stalinism, which was involuntary, a lot more ruthless, and controlled the lives of ~50,000 times more people! No one was ever born an employee of George Pullman, and if his working conditions or products were as bad as the Soviet Union's then he wouldn't stay in business for long!

Pullman Towns were also inefficient, just like the "job for life" policies that were traditional in Japanese corporatism that they're now moving away from. Optimal value comes from finding the best person for any particular job out of the billions that are out there, not trying to figure out how to put your existing employees to their optimal use. Having a job for life also leads to intellectual laziness, resistance to innovation, and corruption. All employees living in the same isolated town can at times also be counterproductive due to the existence of localism and other consumer biases: your own employees may be enthusiastic about your products, but everyone else will see them like a cult and your products as something from a foreign culture, and thus avoid them.

You are ignoring the interest of the business to want maximum power over its workforce. True, most people do become unproductive if they are working for a place in which they have no hope of improving their lot. Yet, what's to stop that corporation from breeding Epsilons, like in Brave New World? Indeed you had before argued it was perfectly fine for parents to intentionally disfigure their children. As long as you raise these Epsilons so that they don't even know that there is an outside world, you aren't technically keeping them prisoner either. Furthermore, as Rothbard noted, you have no obligation to feed them if you don't want to, and if they starve to death that isn't your problem.

"Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children" - Rothbard, MES chp 14

I recently came across this poll on Slashdot -- which asked "I suspect my current job will end when ..." and the choices were "I get fired", "I quit", "I die on the job", etc -- and I commented with this rant:

Subject: In 21st century people have "clients", not "jobs"!

Get with the times, Slashdot!

This poll has very limited choices, most of which shouldn't apply to a modern-day IT worker (office babysitters and network plumbers excluded). Pretty much all programming, DBA, design, CAx, writing, and other types of work is most efficiently done outside of the old "clock in at 9, clock out at 5" job paradigm, which will soon be obsolete for most other types of jobs as well.

Your skills are the most valuable when they are specialized and available on demand, which usually means maintaining relationships with dozens of clients at the same time. You take one project from one employer, another project from another employer, etc - and you often juggle 3-5 projects at the same time if you're working full time, or just 0-2 projects at a time if you're working part time while you're at school, retired (everyone comes out of retirement occasionally if the project is easy and the pay is good), etc.

As an independent software developer, I know this to be true. Yet, computers have certain characteristics that make this true for those who make their livelihoods with them. Other occupations need a physical space, and most workers cannot afford to own that space themselves, and it just makes sense to go to work for the same business every day.

Anarcho-Capitalists glorify individual ownership of the means of production, not "public" and not corporate!

This is where Objectivists and AnCaps disagree on aesthetics: Objectivists like skyscrapers and steak imported from Chile, while AnCaps tend to like the Shire from LotR (except with magical creatures like robots to do the farming and all the other physical labors for us). Neither aesthetic represents technological superiority: in fact densely populated cities were a result of scarcity of access to resources, and things like omnipresent Internet access, cheap energy, fast flying cars, flying package delivery robots, efficient solar panels, robotized agriculture, domes, etc make rural living a lot more enjoyable.

I could believe that. Patri sort of looks like a hobbit.

I suppose I share this aesthetic preference, and my ideal personal lifestyle approaches something like the EarthShip, only using open source designs. I do think the means of production should be in individual hands to the greatest extent possible since this promotes resilience and freedom. I have mutualist tendencies, but I am not stupid enough to think the best way to achieve them is isolating oneself from society or refusing to compromise one's moral purity on categorical imperative grounds. If there is a law to increase the amount of food stamps during a time of hardship, I sure as heck am not going to oppose it. They are just stealing from thieves anyways, right.

Furthermore, I believe that at root the Earth belongs to nobody, and I'm sure any hobbit would agree. Thus, all should benefit from the Earth at least to the point of fulfilling all basic necessities. I also know that realistically security is going to be a huge issue for a long long time... at least until massive transhuman upgrades make enlightened self-interest a more plausible regulatory mechanism... aided by sousveillance, reputation systems, mutual credit, and so on. Thus, land value taxes for the time being, to provide for the common defense, makes sense. Furthermore, since we don't yet have your utopian nano-bot civilization, we need taxes on externalities as well.

Rothbard would tell you to associate yourself more with the Left than the Right, and I can tell that you do not. I can also see that your aesthetic preferences tend to hold up a randroid-style ideal of an entrepreneur to such an extent that you seem to spend little to no time talking about the very real repression of the poor, minorities, etc. Perhaps you're in that disgusting trap that Rand Paul is in, and think it is sub-optimal to talk about the oppression of minorities because that could lead to horrible affirmative action programs like the Civil Rights Act. Or perhaps you just have an empathy deficit.

In many cases there's still a trade-off: growing all of your own food is still economically inefficient, but it ensures your food supply chain is always nearby and you can keep a close eye on its quality. Living in a neighborhood association is cheaper because you get to pool resources for things like security, water, sewage, roads, and so on. As previously stated, people do have a Right to form communes and corporations, but those institutions can only leverage the Rights of the people who choose to participate, not rule by a "divine right" that socialists and other statists claim to have! It is up to each individual to decide if he wants to grow his own food or buy from somebody else, to work as a freelancer (like me) or as a corporate office rat, to live on an independent plot of land / seastead / Firefly-class spaceship or in a neighborhood association / densely populated space station, etc, etc, etc.

I agree... but a shire with a dome is optimal.

Edited by progressive, 25 May 2010 - 06:05 PM.

[chris w]

I'll take a few more juicy nibbles at Chris W, this time from the "Libertarian Rand Paul, Do You Like What He Stands For?" thread (moved here since I do not support R* Paul):

I can get along with progressive libertarians, to me you guys are just wrong on the starting point but still belong in the forces of MiddleEarth nevertheless, but a libertarian and social conservatist is a marriage made in Mordor, and where I live that's pretty much the only type.

All libertarians / capitalists are progressive (they push the civilization forward), and all socialists / statists are regressive (they hold the civilization back).

Hmm, kind of like Marx discovering "The Immutable Laws of History".

You are making a mistake identical to the mistake of saying "science is just another religion". Science is a process specifically chosen for the purpose of pursuing the objective truth, which is what makes it different from religion, which is a social phenomena motivated by collectivism, emotion, and often the desire to take advantage. Likewise, my philosophy (and the philosophies it borrows from) owes its first allegiance to the truth, and arrives at conclusions like individualism, property rights, non-aggression, etc by the same route the empirical inquiry into the nature of reality results in scientific method.

Both juicy quotes below from Alex Libman the evolutionary pragmatist :

All libertarians / capitalists are progressive (they push the civilization forward), and all socialists / statists are regressive (they hold the civilization back)

It is functionally impossible for cavemen who refuse to recognize the Right to Life for anyone outside their immediate tribal group, much less their Rights to Liberty and Property, to effectively domesticate animals, till the soil, irrigate the Nile delta, drain the swamps of Europe turning infertile land fertile"

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's pretty well established that the said cavemen actually did all these things effectively ( thus - pushing civilization forward ) without the slicest clue about respect for one's individual property rights, their group or another. Like I said before - hunter gatherer groups are egalitarian, sustaining a concept close to today "social / biological minimum". Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were pretty much 100 % falling under the definition of "socialist hell holes" - with collective, state and religion force - backed architectonic and agricultural projects headed at least formally by their "Big Men", whose lifes were the only ones considered to be precious, not lifes of any of the dirty workers that built the piramids and zikkurats, those were pretty much disposable and worthless ( not to mention property - they did not own the fields they cultivated, those belonged to either the king or the temples). The biggest early achievements of mankind happened accidentally in very collectivist/statist environments. Respect for historical facts is a valuable trait, if they don't suit your particular ideology - deal with it instead of fantastically twisting them.

This here is an example of projecting one's ideological tenets into past eras in a believe that if something evidently worked, then it has to be on "our side" even if it clearly isn't, kind of like Christian missionaries trying to convince the savages that they also believed in The Only God, just without knowing it, since there was often an entity in those religions of a highest, distant, omniscient god hanging above the ussuall colorful, politheistic crowd. And to everyone except those missionaries it would be clear that this was not the case, even if they really really wanted it to be.

Edited by chris w, 25 May 2010 - 07:43 PM.

[Alex Libman]

You are ignoring the interest of the business to want maximum power over its workforce.

And I want 72 young pretty virgins (fresh ones every couple of years) who can also cook, clean, and repair Porsche transmissions to work for me 24/7 for free - no, scratch that, to pay for the privilege of being my sex slaves! The problem? Lack of supply.

If NAP isn't being violated (i.e. slavery) then those "sweatshops" / "Pullman Towns" are providing valuable employment, otherwise the employees would work somewhere else instead. The power difference between employees and employers only exists in a condition of extreme inter-changeability of labor, that is mindless jobs that almost anyone can do. Doctors and lawyers don't have this problem, and brilliant architects can choose one project out of hundreds that compete for their attention. One has to wonder what those people were thinking throughout the course of their lives to end up in such a job...

True, most people do become unproductive if they are working for a place in which they have no hope of improving their lot. Yet, what's to stop that corporation from breeding Epsilons, like in Brave New World? Indeed you had before argued it was perfectly fine for parents to intentionally disfigure their children. As long as you raise these Epsilons so that they don't even know that there is an outside world, you aren't technically keeping them prisoner either.

Parents do have substantial Rights over their children, which is a substantial part of the incentive for those children being born in the first place, but the children also have Rights on the basis of their potential as future self-owning Rational Economic Actors, that is the Right to Life and the Right to Emancipation. When you say that I've "argued it was perfectly fine for parents to intentionally disfigure their children" you probably mean my opposition to bans on circumcision, with blind parents wanting blind children being the most extreme example I was able to think of. Those examples result in parents molding their children in their own image, so to speak, and in of themselves do not violate the legal rights as a child. Those parents may deserve to be ostracized, but not acted against by force (unless of course the child has the wish and the opportunity to be emancipated from them, and there would be plenty of charities and even for-profit interests willing to provide that opportunity). If, on the other hand, a parent / guardian disfigures a child arbitrarily, then that does violate the Rights of the child - if you can cut off one finger, what's to stop you from cutting off all means the child would have to communicate, which is essential for his/her potential for Emancipation? And "breeding Epsilons" would be a definite textbook example of violating the child's Right to Emancipation!

Without the political circus to distract people from pouring their social concerns into a rigged dead-end "democratic" process, those concerns would be a lot more constructively directed into things like consumer activism. People who used to rant all day about "9/11 being an inside job" and the "new world order" will instead turn their suspicions to corporations instead of governments, and corporations are infinitely more accountable to public opinion than even the most Utopian government ever imagined! If some blogger notices that a corporation produces products or services without anyone being able to communicate with the workers (and number crunching market databases would make such things inescapable) that company would experience a lot of pressure to prove that they aren't using slave labor. At minimum they wouldn't even have to release their secret factory processes to public domain, just hire a reputable quality assurance agency to conduct regular audits (which is as good as government regulation, but since the QA agency is subject to competition it's far less prone to corruption, etc). A company that refuses to adequately answer those suspicions will quickly lose a sizable fraction of its market share and be eaten alive by their higher-karma competition.

Furthermore, as Rothbard noted, you have no obligation to feed them if you don't want to, and if they starve to death that isn't your problem.

"Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children" - Rothbard, MES chp 14

I've previously explained to you [2] that the child's Right to Emancipation prevents the parents from keeping the status of the child a secret. They are not obligated to provide food, but they are obligated to announce that fact publicly (which modern information technology will make ever-easier) and comply with the stampede of child protection charities that will immediately rush to that child's aid. This isn't in any way different from the parents being able to give their children up for adoption under most governments today, but in a free society there would be a lot less red tape and thus a lot more options for that child (and/or the emancipation arbitrator / jury) to choose from. Even in total absence of charitable intentions, I can think of no business I'd rather invest in than investing in human beings: giving them what they need (food, shelter, education, etc) to achieve a successful career which you could then levy a tax on.

[...] Furthermore, I believe that at root the Earth belongs to nobody, and I'm sure any hobbit would agree. [...]

Um, heck no. The typical Anarcho-Capitalist predisposition of the Shire aesthetic is conditional on all the little Hobbits having very strong property Rights over their holes, farms, and so forth. You must remember that Tolkien's idyllic vision was based on "Merry England", with American AnCaps focusing specifically on New Hampshire but also on other rural American traditions as well - those cultures have always had some of the strongest Property Rights in the world, which is largely the cause of their success.

(Some more doubleplusunanarchocapitalist progressivebabble ignored.)

[Alex Libman]

Importing conversation from "the defeat of wheat" thread (the main subject of which can be answered with one word, buckwheat):

but there are many ideas that were around since the 1950s that we aren't utilizing: price incentives to make animal products a super-luxury

Not quite a "live free or die" libertarian manifesto you're pushing there. Especially the term "price incentives." Live like me or die?

Ah yes. Another person who would like to see price incentives to support his viewpoint.

Um, wow... You thought that I, an Anarcho-Capitalist, was talking about government imposing artificial subsidies, taxes, and price controls?! Oh hell no, I was talking about natural price incentives that would occur in government's absence, without meat / gain subsidies, without government-supplied water, without liability limits for pollution caused by animal farming, without municipal zoning restrictions that might require a person to waste his lawn-space on grass and decorative bushes instead of something edible, with private ownership of water territory and thus an incentive to set up fish breeding grids, and so on. Consumer habits naturally adjust to the prices. Very few people would still be drinking cow hormone and cholesterol juice (aka milk) if it cost 5x more than soy milk!

The more population we have -- the more hands, the more minds, the more wallets -- the more food we can produce. We are standing on the verge of scientific breakthroughs that would increase agricultural productivity logarithmically (ex. genetic engineering), but there are many ideas that were around since the 1950s that we aren't utilizing: price incentives to make animal products a super-luxury, irrigating the deserts, heated greenhouses everywhere (even Antarctica), fish farming, skyscraper farms, floating corn fields on seas and oceans, fungi that can grow without any sunlight at all, etc, etc, etc. I bet even an average suburban home in Brooklyn could grow enough food to feed itself if it utilized its space at maximum efficiently, much less the 99.9% of the planet that is a lot less densely populated!

This is based on the assumption that the increased population will be largely economically productive. However, if most are living in near poverty conditions (as they do today), suffering nutritional deficiencies wrought by a diet of primarily grains and legumes (and other poorly engineered foods), I doubt they will all be busy innovating. Most likely suffering in their polluted and crowded mega cities.

Virtually all of the unemployment and poverty that exists today comes from government failure! Those failures result in restrictions to trade, chase away investment dollars, bully people's altruist instincts into dysfunctional government schemes instead of competitive private charity, etc, etc, etc. Under capitalism everyone in order to exist must pull his own economic weight (or convince someone else to pull that weight for you) without using force!

I don't think we have any obligation to maximize agricultural output simply because "hungry people exist".

No, but keeping a human being from starvation is the best investment in the known universe. Staple crops are cheap. Human labor is valuable, especially if you can get him/her to sign a contract of indentured servitude - hey, anything's better than starving to death! Libertarianism would solve the hunger problem overnight.

[...] libertarian feuldalism, not so tasty.

definitely agreed

Feudalism is an oppressive statist system where people are born into a certain social class that limits their possibilities in life. A libertarian society is a complete opposite, but people still have to operate within the confines of economic reality - no political system makes free caviar, ponies, and everyone's every other wish magically materialize out of thin air with no human involvement!

When people own themselves, they have a Right to rent or sell themselves if they so choose, which would only be an alternative that's worth considering if you're about to starve to death. You cannot sell what isn't yours, like the Rights of your children. The free market always leads to self-organization, optimization, and progress, and even with indentured servitude there would be plenty of brokers competing for your contract, and some non-profit or semi-non-profit charities as well, which would naturally raise your price and the terms of your contract: limit it to X years, fewer work hours, stricter humanitarian standards, better dental coverage, more pool tables in the rec room, more money in your pocket when you are emancipated, free career advancement classes, and so on. And of course your Right to Emancipation remains: if a guardian violated a dependent's contract then the dependent can sue for emancipation and/or restitution.

Edited by Alex Libman, 26 May 2010 - 08:26 AM.

[rwac]

Um, wow... You thought that I, an Anarcho-Capitalist, was talking about government imposing artificial subsidies, taxes, and price controls?! Oh hell no, I was talking about natural price incentives that would occur in government's absence, without meat / gain subsidies, without government-supplied water, without liability limits for pollution caused by animal farming, without municipal zoning restrictions that might require a person to waste his lawn-space on grass and decorative bushes instead of something edible, with private ownership of water territory and thus an incentive to set up fish breeding grids, and so on. Consumer habits naturally adjust to the prices. Very few people would still be drinking cow hormone and cholesterol juice (aka milk) if it cost 5x more than soy milk!

You forgot the soy subsidies. Soy milk might end up *more* expensive.
Especially if you remove all the current regulations on milk.

...price incentives to make animal products a super-luxury

Sure sounds like you have an agenda, as opposed to if you had said something like;
"remove all price incentives, so animal products can reach their proper price"

Even at an increased price, it would still be worth it to have a meat based diet, since it leads to a better quality of life, and is likely cheaper to prevent problems than fix them medically.

[EmbraceUnity]

When people own themselves, they have a Right to rent or sell themselves if they so choose, which would only be an alternative that's worth considering if you're about to starve to death.

Selling yourself is not indentured servitude, it is outright slavery... not that either are acceptable. By right-libertarian logic, if selling yourself into slavery is your best option, clearly we shouldn't refuse a person that right.

Despicable.

If you don't accept this, you are placing an arbitrary limitation on rights. Of course creating arbitrary rights is nothing out of the ordinary for you. I dream up arbitrary rights all the time, but I don't pretend them to be objective.

[Skötkonung]

I made my counter-points in the other thread. Sorry, I didn't see you moved the discussion topic.

[chris w]

For example, I've contemplated the possibility of altering my understanding of Natural Law to use force in order to raise fertility rates, but then I've decided that it wouldn't be necessary as fertility rates would rise back up in a society that would simultaneously be relatively rational, prosperous, and free.

This sounds tempting but I fear might be a case of wishfull thinking. The historical info points to the contrary. Leaving aside for a minute our war about what is and what isn't freedom and who/what is the menace to it, you have to admit that today's western society is more rational, prosperous and at least relatively free than it was in, say, XVIII century, and the birth rate is plumetting. I doubt that more of the same will somehow shift the trend in our favor. If you count out the alpha males of "sheichk cultures" to whom large offspring with multiple women is a display of status, it is clear that in places where people still struggle for day to day bread, children are a strictly economic investment, an emotional one - additionaly. When those people can take care for their cropps or their whatever with more and more advanced machines - large families to many of them loose the appeal.

Now, if we become long lived in the next step, then those rational, prosperous and free are going to recognise a posteriori, that for the whole of human's history having children was just the sub-optimal version of what they have now - so here's another reason to stay childless. Throw in the kickass VR worlds and sophisticated, realistic sex-bots ( and I know that secretly it is the only reason you Objectivists want human civilization to advance ) and we have a populus of eternal "teenagers", not very keen on forming strong emotional bonds and bringing up new entities that shit their pants and have to be taken care of.

I read a few posts about your propostition of Chidless Tax in Free Talk, and did not find the idea rationaly undefendable. I'm not in love with the little brats, but you have a point for example with the "the more people, the more potential geniuses", also "no one consciously chooses to be born, but by doing so you nonetheless enter into biological debt" reeks to a young hedonistic Westerner but has some truth nevertheless. But this brings on troubling conundrums. On purely aesthetic level it's uncomfortable, smells unpleasantly tribalic and anti-self determinant, but that's nothing yet. You joked that being gay isn't an excuse, but what about for example insufficient attractiveness to find a suitable mate and have children with him/her ? People considering themselves ( justly or not ) to be not attractive enough physically or personality - wise will obviously want to be excluded from the tax, and in such case - who decides if they qualify or not ? Do we establish some "beauty pannels?". I think it is now considered that in our evolutionary past only some 40% of males and 90 % females successfully mated with anybody, so it may not be a totally abstract problem, especially in a post aging and libertarian society, in which you would have probably a caste of insanely rich dudes and hordes of women with a lot of time ( given the engineered lack of menopause and no "race against gravity" ) to attract them, leaving the betas in a sticky situation.

Oh, and BTW - "Ayn Rand meets Dr.Seuss" ?? geez, man, you people teach your kids those things ?

from An Annoying Deathist - Leaning Author:

Like I keep saying, the biggest objection to anti-aging always comes for socialist / statist reasons, like all their depopulation bull about the universe being too small for more than a few billion humans... Humbug!

I don't think the guy has his mind in outer space yet, if we stick to Earth for the sake of argument ( as it's safe to assume that the defeat of aging will come sooner than distant space travel and advanced terraforming tech, so that we could get the hell out of here to our cozy socialist or libertarian planets ) then the concern is irrelevant for the immediate now and is just a deathist smoke screen, but is not irrelevant per se in the long run. Even with the population of mentioned responsibility shuning immortal individuals, still some kids will be born here and there. It would be reasonable to propose as someone already did in one thread a coercive trade - off = the wonder pill or popping the kids out and dying of old age, it's your choice, together with maybe something like tradeable quotas ( like with CO2 today ), adjustable to every current situation in terms of number of people and state of technology to sustain us. And that of course brings about the problem of how to impose that politics effectively ? It's really hard to convince people that them giving life to another people is a threat to us all ("but babies are soo cute !" will win with any rational argument ). Surely there will be ones who traded their "child limit" but still conceived despite of that, you won't throw them to jail, orphaning the kid at the same time right ? It would be even more complicated if only parts of the Earth's population would be able or willing to use the rejuvenation technologies, because the multiplying "traditionals" would be contributing to making the boat fuller and fuller but without the immortality in their own equation, so by forcing them not to have kids, they would be made to pay for other people's "sins". Shit, some more of that and I will start to sound like the damn Leon Kass, good night everyone.

Edited by chris w, 27 May 2010 - 01:46 AM.

[EmbraceUnity]

If you have barely any money, and all security forces are private, who defends your property and keeps you safe?

Edited by progressive, 27 May 2010 - 03:08 AM.

[JLL]

If you have barely any money, what is there to defend?

[Lallante]

If you have barely any money, what is there to defend?

Your health and the little money you do have.

What stops the person with the biggest security force stealing everyone else's stuff.

[EmbraceUnity]

Yes. Who stops you from being killed? Your body is your property. Who defends that? Not to mention the fact that this system is supposed to be based on homesteading. Presumably someone with very little money could just homestead a piece of land. Who would defend it though?

Edited by progressive, 27 May 2010 - 06:18 PM.

[chris w]

If you have barely any money, what is there to defend?

Your health and the little money you do have.

What stops the person with the biggest security force stealing everyone else's stuff.

No, no guys, remember, they will all respect NAP and Property Rights to not ruin their market reputation, so no problemo !

Edited by chris w, 27 May 2010 - 06:42 PM.

[DairyProducts]

If you have barely any money, what is there to defend?

You're right, because poor neighborhoods never have robbery and mugging problems.