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| darwinist... |
 Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:26 am |
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On Nov 1, 10:43 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...]
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety standard
issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a society of
mature individuals.
[/quote]
How might you fund the police and armed forces, if taxes are
voluntary?
Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
[quote]but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
of government.
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at odds
with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what it means
to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
[/quote]
Good to know.
[quote]
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists..
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In any
case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be optional,
IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some sales taxes levied
only on materials over and above subsistence products.
[/quote]
Why tax products but not income or property? Earning an income above
the tax-free threshhold, or owning land is also voluntary.
[quote]It would be
possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
There is a way to substitute
at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
market. IOW: State capitalism.
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
competitors.
[/quote]
Almost all new businesses (of any kind) run at a loss for the first
few years. That's not to say they need extra capital added each year,
or that they won't eventually make a profit. There are plenty of
examples of profitable state-owned enterprises. Telcos, banks, venture-
capital, general investment funds. I think it's short-sighted to rule
them out because they require tax-funding to start with. In the long
run they can - and often do - decrease the proportion of government
funding that comes from tax.
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
from private businesses and personal incomes.
[quote]JG
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
Of course not.
*Whew*.
JG
JG[/quote] |
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| Clave... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:52 am |
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Guest
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"darwinist" <darwinist at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote in message
news:2ce65a71-0bc7-499f-a32e-613ea153066e at (no spam) d9g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
<...>
[quote]Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
[/quote]
Libertarianism makes you stupid.
http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
Jim |
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| John Galt... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:58 am |
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Guest
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darwinist wrote:
[quote]On Oct 28, 12:24 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
Libertarians often compare taxation to support welfare safety nets
with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps. Since taxation is
backed up by the coercive power of government, it is viewed as morally
equivalent in kind to the coercive power of the thief, the
slaveholder, and the dictator. Such a view rests upon the assumption
that people have strong rights over the property that they own, rights
that are somehow essentially connected with the right to liberty, so
that taxation and slavery are essentially the same. Do we have such
rights? What is the connection between property rights over things and
the individual's right to liberty? How do we come to have property
rights over things?
The Problem Of Original Acquisition
Suppose we were to trace the ownership history of some piece of
property, either in land or in some other kind of good. The object
will have a history of transfers from one owner to another. These
transfers may involve sale, trade, gift, or bequeathment, for example.
The history of an object may also involve some process of manufacture,
where the manufacturer purchases raw materials and combines them to
form a finished product, which is then sold to a customer. All of
these transfers involve a change in ownership rights from one person
to another. But how did anyone ever first come to own anything? If we
trace the ownership of any object backward in time, eventually we must
reach a point where land, or ore, or trees, or some other natural
product that was not owned by any human being comes to be owned by
someone. Strong property rights of the kind envisaged by the
libertarian give the owner of the thing complete control over the
thing, control that includes the right to prevent others from using
the thing without permission of the owner. How can this be? How can
some individual come to have exclusive rights over a part of the world
that previously was not owned by anyone at all? The idea that
individual human beings can somehow acquire ownership rights over
parts of the earth has struck many people as strange. Many of the
native American peoples believed that the land belonged to the people
as a whole for their use. A similar view, that the earth belonged in
usufruct to the living, was held by Thomas Jefferson as well.
This problem of original acquisition is important for the libertarian
in at least two ways. First, according to Nozick's libertarian theory
of justice, the justice of any distribution of goods is a function of
the history of that distribution rather than of the pattern exhibited
by that distribution. If the distribution was reached by just
transfers from justly acquired initial holdings, then and only then is
the distribution just. This account needs some theory of justice in
original acquisition. Second, libertarian complaints that taxation to
support welfare safety nets is slavery requires property rights of a
very strong kind, rights that are not in any way encumbered by social
obligations. But since transfer can only transfer rights previously
acquired, the libertarian is going to need some account of original
acquisition that yields strong property rights of the kind presupposed
by the criticism of taxation for social welfare programs. Can the
libertarian deliver?...
...Suppose you and I are hunter-gatherers living in proximity to one
another. Suppose there is a section of woods that is particularly rich
in wild fruit, berries, nuts, and small game. Now suppose I claim this
woods as my own property and forbid you to forage for food there. But
surely in doing so I damage or impede your use of the woods. After
all, before I claimed it as my personal property, you were free to use
it as you liked. Now, wouldn't this be true of all original
acquisitions? Strong private property rights of the kind claimed by
libertarians certainly do include the right of the owner to exclude
others from use of the thing. So don't all original acquisitions
damage or impede the use of the thing acquired by others?
Narveson [objects] that my claiming the woods as my own must not
damage or impede your use of "such objects." To be sure, my claim
impedes your use of this woods, but so long as there are plenty of
other woods readily available to you, you retain access to "such
objects." Here Narveson clearly has in mind a proviso that Locke
attached to his own account of original acquisition: I am entitled to
make a part of nature my own only if there be "enough and as good left
in common for others." The idea, then, is that I can make some part of
nature my own private property so long as equally good portions of
nature remain available for other people to use in common or claim as
their own. If I were to claim the only source of water in the area as
my own, I would be violating the proviso, while if I claim an acre of
land, leaving plenty more available, I would not.
There is a certain reasonableness to the Lockean proviso. Clearly, if
I claim the only source of water as my own, I seriously damage your
interests in a way that I do not when I claim the single acre as my
own, leaving you with ample land for your own use. But can the
libertarian go along with Locke, as Narveson appears to do? Prior to
any act of original acquisition you were at liberty to cross this
piece of land. Now I claim this piece of land as my own. You are no
longer at liberty to cross this piece of land. By my own unilateral
action I have canceled your right to cross this piece of land. That
there is as much and as good left over should not be relevant for the
libertarian, for whom the right to liberty is inviolable.
There is also a regress problem that seems to render the Lockean
proviso unsatisfiable. Nozick provides a clear formulation of the
problem:
Consider the first person Z for whom there is not enough and as good
left to appropriate. The last person Y to appropriate left Z without
his previous liberty to act on an object, and so worsened Z's
situation. So Y's appropriation is not allowed under Locke's proviso.
Therefore the next to last person X to appropriate left Y in a worse
position, for X's act ended permissible appropriation. Therefore X's
appropriation wasn't permissible. But then the appropriator two from
last, W, ended permissible appropriation and so, since it worsened X's
position, W's appropriation wasn't permissible. And so on back to the
first person A to appropriate a permanent property right.15
If satisfaction of the Lockean proviso is necessary for just
acquisition, and if, as the regress argument seems to show, it cannot
have been satisfied in the real world, where enough and as good is
clearly not available for future appropriation, then it seems to
follow that no actual property rights can be acceptable.
Modern Political Philosophy by Richard Hudelsonhttp://www.amazon.com/Modern-Political-Philosophy-Explorations/dp/076...http://tinyurl.com/ModPolitPhlosophy
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
[/quote]
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly), but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
JG |
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| Rod Speed... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:11 am |
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Guest
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John Galt wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
On Oct 28, 12:24 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
Libertarians often compare taxation to support welfare safety nets
with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps. Since taxation
is backed up by the coercive power of government, it is viewed as
morally equivalent in kind to the coercive power of the thief, the
slaveholder, and the dictator. Such a view rests upon the assumption
that people have strong rights over the property that they own,
rights that are somehow essentially connected with the right to liberty, so
that taxation and slavery are essentially the same. Do we have such
rights? What is the connection between property rights over things
and the individual's right to liberty? How do we come to have property
rights over things?
The Problem Of Original Acquisition
Suppose we were to trace the ownership history of some piece of
property, either in land or in some other kind of good. The object
will have a history of transfers from one owner to another. These
transfers may involve sale, trade, gift, or bequeathment, for
example. The history of an object may also involve some process of
manufacture, where the manufacturer purchases raw materials and combines them to
form a finished product, which is then sold to a customer. All of
these transfers involve a change in ownership rights from one person
to another. But how did anyone ever first come to own anything? If
we trace the ownership of any object backward in time, eventually we
must reach a point where land, or ore, or trees, or some other natural
product that was not owned by any human being comes to be owned by
someone. Strong property rights of the kind envisaged by the
libertarian give the owner of the thing complete control over the
thing, control that includes the right to prevent others from using
the thing without permission of the owner. How can this be? How can
some individual come to have exclusive rights over a part of the
world that previously was not owned by anyone at all? The idea that
individual human beings can somehow acquire ownership rights over
parts of the earth has struck many people as strange. Many of the
native American peoples believed that the land belonged to the
people as a whole for their use. A similar view, that the earth belonged in
usufruct to the living, was held by Thomas Jefferson as well.
This problem of original acquisition is important for the
libertarian in at least two ways. First, according to Nozick's libertarian
theory of justice, the justice of any distribution of goods is a function
of the history of that distribution rather than of the pattern
exhibited by that distribution. If the distribution was reached by just
transfers from justly acquired initial holdings, then and only then
is the distribution just. This account needs some theory of justice in
original acquisition. Second, libertarian complaints that taxation
to support welfare safety nets is slavery requires property rights of a
very strong kind, rights that are not in any way encumbered by
social obligations. But since transfer can only transfer rights previously
acquired, the libertarian is going to need some account of original
acquisition that yields strong property rights of the kind
presupposed by the criticism of taxation for social welfare programs. Can the
libertarian deliver?...
...Suppose you and I are hunter-gatherers living in proximity to one
another. Suppose there is a section of woods that is particularly
rich in wild fruit, berries, nuts, and small game. Now suppose I claim
this woods as my own property and forbid you to forage for food there.
But surely in doing so I damage or impede your use of the woods. After
all, before I claimed it as my personal property, you were free to
use it as you liked. Now, wouldn't this be true of all original
acquisitions? Strong private property rights of the kind claimed by
libertarians certainly do include the right of the owner to exclude
others from use of the thing. So don't all original acquisitions
damage or impede the use of the thing acquired by others?
Narveson [objects] that my claiming the woods as my own must not
damage or impede your use of "such objects." To be sure, my claim
impedes your use of this woods, but so long as there are plenty of
other woods readily available to you, you retain access to "such
objects." Here Narveson clearly has in mind a proviso that Locke
attached to his own account of original acquisition: I am entitled
to make a part of nature my own only if there be "enough and as good
left in common for others." The idea, then, is that I can make some part
of nature my own private property so long as equally good portions of
nature remain available for other people to use in common or claim
as their own. If I were to claim the only source of water in the area
as my own, I would be violating the proviso, while if I claim an acre
of land, leaving plenty more available, I would not.
There is a certain reasonableness to the Lockean proviso. Clearly,
if I claim the only source of water as my own, I seriously damage your
interests in a way that I do not when I claim the single acre as my
own, leaving you with ample land for your own use. But can the
libertarian go along with Locke, as Narveson appears to do? Prior to
any act of original acquisition you were at liberty to cross this
piece of land. Now I claim this piece of land as my own. You are no
longer at liberty to cross this piece of land. By my own unilateral
action I have canceled your right to cross this piece of land. That
there is as much and as good left over should not be relevant for
the libertarian, for whom the right to liberty is inviolable.
There is also a regress problem that seems to render the Lockean
proviso unsatisfiable. Nozick provides a clear formulation of the
problem:
Consider the first person Z for whom there is not enough and as good
left to appropriate. The last person Y to appropriate left Z without
his previous liberty to act on an object, and so worsened Z's
situation. So Y's appropriation is not allowed under Locke's
proviso. Therefore the next to last person X to appropriate left Y in a worse
position, for X's act ended permissible appropriation. Therefore X's
appropriation wasn't permissible. But then the appropriator two from
last, W, ended permissible appropriation and so, since it worsened
X's position, W's appropriation wasn't permissible. And so on back to
the first person A to appropriate a permanent property right.15
If satisfaction of the Lockean proviso is necessary for just
acquisition, and if, as the regress argument seems to show, it
cannot have been satisfied in the real world, where enough and as good is
clearly not available for future appropriation, then it seems to
follow that no actual property rights can be acceptable.
Modern Political Philosophy by Richard
Hudelsonhttp://www.amazon.com/Modern-Political-Philosophy-Explorations/dp/076...http://tinyurl.com/ModPolitPhlosophy
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly), but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism.
[/quote]
Wrong, as always.
[quote]Whenever any of these systems are tried in heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
[/quote]
The mix of capitalism and socialism seen in EVERY modern state doesnt.
[quote]All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great
if....?"
[/quote]
The mix of capitalism and socialism seen in EVERY modern state isnt.
[quote]In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
[/quote]
Yes, and neither approach works.
[quote]They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is possible to have a political class that will work
in the best interests of a populace, rather than themselves;
[/quote]
Mindlessly silly.
[quote]and also to point out that there is such a thing as economic freedom;
[/quote]
Corse there is for most of us.
[quote]if 100% taxation is perfect slavery,
[/quote]
You dont tax slaves, fool.
[quote]the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the less personal liberty one has.
[/quote]
More utterly mindless silly stuff.
[quote]Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always good for you, are you?
[/quote]
Having fun thrashing that straw man ? |
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| Clave... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:17 am |
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Guest
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"(David P.)" <imbibe at (no spam) mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:0e57f526-bd17-474c-a604-f88c29c3625c at (no spam) w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
[quote]"Clave" <Clavius at (no spam) cablespeed.com> wrote:
"darwinist" <darwin... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
Libertarian theory has problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of gummint, regulating pollution, provision
of road/communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies,
de-facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food/drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
Libertarianism makes you stupid.
http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php
Seth Finkelstein - anagram
****************
See the skinflint.
[/quote]
Wow. What must that MEAN?
Jim |
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| John Galt... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:40 am |
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Guest
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darwinist wrote:
[quote]On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Oct 28, 12:24 pm, Immortalist <reanimater_2... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
Libertarian Property Rights: A Critical Assessment
Libertarians often compare taxation to support welfare safety nets
with armed robbery, slavery, and forced-labor camps. Since taxation is
backed up by the coercive power of government, it is viewed as morally
equivalent in kind to the coercive power of the thief, the
slaveholder, and the dictator. Such a view rests upon the assumption
that people have strong rights over the property that they own, rights
that are somehow essentially connected with the right to liberty, so
that taxation and slavery are essentially the same. Do we have such
rights? What is the connection between property rights over things and
the individual's right to liberty? How do we come to have property
rights over things?
The Problem Of Original Acquisition
Suppose we were to trace the ownership history of some piece of
property, either in land or in some other kind of good. The object
will have a history of transfers from one owner to another. These
transfers may involve sale, trade, gift, or bequeathment, for example.
The history of an object may also involve some process of manufacture,
where the manufacturer purchases raw materials and combines them to
form a finished product, which is then sold to a customer. All of
these transfers involve a change in ownership rights from one person
to another. But how did anyone ever first come to own anything? If we
trace the ownership of any object backward in time, eventually we must
reach a point where land, or ore, or trees, or some other natural
product that was not owned by any human being comes to be owned by
someone. Strong property rights of the kind envisaged by the
libertarian give the owner of the thing complete control over the
thing, control that includes the right to prevent others from using
the thing without permission of the owner. How can this be? How can
some individual come to have exclusive rights over a part of the world
that previously was not owned by anyone at all? The idea that
individual human beings can somehow acquire ownership rights over
parts of the earth has struck many people as strange. Many of the
native American peoples believed that the land belonged to the people
as a whole for their use. A similar view, that the earth belonged in
usufruct to the living, was held by Thomas Jefferson as well.
This problem of original acquisition is important for the libertarian
in at least two ways. First, according to Nozick's libertarian theory
of justice, the justice of any distribution of goods is a function of
the history of that distribution rather than of the pattern exhibited
by that distribution. If the distribution was reached by just
transfers from justly acquired initial holdings, then and only then is
the distribution just. This account needs some theory of justice in
original acquisition. Second, libertarian complaints that taxation to
support welfare safety nets is slavery requires property rights of a
very strong kind, rights that are not in any way encumbered by social
obligations. But since transfer can only transfer rights previously
acquired, the libertarian is going to need some account of original
acquisition that yields strong property rights of the kind presupposed
by the criticism of taxation for social welfare programs. Can the
libertarian deliver?...
...Suppose you and I are hunter-gatherers living in proximity to one
another. Suppose there is a section of woods that is particularly rich
in wild fruit, berries, nuts, and small game. Now suppose I claim this
woods as my own property and forbid you to forage for food there. But
surely in doing so I damage or impede your use of the woods. After
all, before I claimed it as my personal property, you were free to use
it as you liked. Now, wouldn't this be true of all original
acquisitions? Strong private property rights of the kind claimed by
libertarians certainly do include the right of the owner to exclude
others from use of the thing. So don't all original acquisitions
damage or impede the use of the thing acquired by others?
Narveson [objects] that my claiming the woods as my own must not
damage or impede your use of "such objects." To be sure, my claim
impedes your use of this woods, but so long as there are plenty of
other woods readily available to you, you retain access to "such
objects." Here Narveson clearly has in mind a proviso that Locke
attached to his own account of original acquisition: I am entitled to
make a part of nature my own only if there be "enough and as good left
in common for others." The idea, then, is that I can make some part of
nature my own private property so long as equally good portions of
nature remain available for other people to use in common or claim as
their own. If I were to claim the only source of water in the area as
my own, I would be violating the proviso, while if I claim an acre of
land, leaving plenty more available, I would not.
There is a certain reasonableness to the Lockean proviso. Clearly, if
I claim the only source of water as my own, I seriously damage your
interests in a way that I do not when I claim the single acre as my
own, leaving you with ample land for your own use. But can the
libertarian go along with Locke, as Narveson appears to do? Prior to
any act of original acquisition you were at liberty to cross this
piece of land. Now I claim this piece of land as my own. You are no
longer at liberty to cross this piece of land. By my own unilateral
action I have canceled your right to cross this piece of land. That
there is as much and as good left over should not be relevant for the
libertarian, for whom the right to liberty is inviolable.
There is also a regress problem that seems to render the Lockean
proviso unsatisfiable. Nozick provides a clear formulation of the
problem:
Consider the first person Z for whom there is not enough and as good
left to appropriate. The last person Y to appropriate left Z without
his previous liberty to act on an object, and so worsened Z's
situation. So Y's appropriation is not allowed under Locke's proviso.
Therefore the next to last person X to appropriate left Y in a worse
position, for X's act ended permissible appropriation. Therefore X's
appropriation wasn't permissible. But then the appropriator two from
last, W, ended permissible appropriation and so, since it worsened X's
position, W's appropriation wasn't permissible. And so on back to the
first person A to appropriate a permanent property right.15
If satisfaction of the Lockean proviso is necessary for just
acquisition, and if, as the regress argument seems to show, it cannot
have been satisfied in the real world, where enough and as good is
clearly not available for future appropriation, then it seems to
follow that no actual property rights can be acceptable.
Modern Political Philosophy by Richard Hudelsonhttp://www.amazon.com/Modern-Political-Philosophy-Explorations/dp/076...
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
[/quote]
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
[quote]
but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
[/quote]
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
of government.
[quote]
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
[/quote]
Quite so.
[quote]
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
time.
[/quote]
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
[quote]
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
Of course not.
[/quote]
*Whew*.
JG
[quote]
JG[/quote] |
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| Back to top |
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| John Galt... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 6:43 am |
|
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Guest
|
darwinist wrote:
[quote]On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...]
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
[/quote]
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety standard
issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a society of
mature individuals.
[quote]
but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
of government.
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
[/quote]
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at odds
with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what it means
to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
[quote]
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In any
case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
[/quote]
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be optional,
IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some sales taxes levied
only on materials over and above subsistence products. It would be
possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
There is a way to substitute
[quote]at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
market. IOW: State capitalism.
[/quote]
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
competitors.
JG
[quote]
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
Of course not.
*Whew*.
JG
JG[/quote] |
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| John Galt... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 8:56 am |
|
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|
Guest
|
darwinist wrote:
[quote]On Nov 1, 10:43 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...]
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety standard
issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a society of
mature individuals.
How might you fund the police and armed forces, if taxes are
voluntary?
[/quote]
They're use taxes and sales taxes on all goods which are nonsubsistence.
If you want to live anything over subsistence, you're paying them. Most
states already exempt subsistence goods from sales taxation, so you'd be
collecting at least as much as you are today. I don't think there'd be
much trouble collecting enough for police and fire; you'd certainly be
able to work out a defensive armed forces as well. Would there be enough
to fund an armed forces large enough to maintain hegemonic control over
the entire world and fend off a Klingon attack force, as we do today?
Unlikely, but who needs it? (Libertarians trend neutral/isolationist.)
[quote]
Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
[/quote]
If they jam signals nobody wins. Mature people usually figure out a way
to cut deals so everyone wins.
[quote]
but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
of government.
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at odds
with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what it means
to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
Good to know.
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In any
case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be optional,
IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some sales taxes levied
only on materials over and above subsistence products.
Why tax products but not income or property? Earning an income above
the tax-free threshhold, or owning land is also voluntary.
[/quote]
I think doing so would be perfectly in keeping with the basic philosophy.
[quote]
It would be
possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
There is a way to substitute
at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
market. IOW: State capitalism.
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
competitors.
Almost all new businesses (of any kind) run at a loss for the first
few years. That's not to say they need extra capital added each year,
or that they won't eventually make a profit. There are plenty of
examples of profitable state-owned enterprises. Telcos, banks, venture-
capital, general investment funds. I think it's short-sighted to rule
them out because they require tax-funding to start with. In the long
run they can - and often do - decrease the proportion of government
funding that comes from tax.
[/quote]
There are definitely certain areas that can tolerate state-ownership
better than others. However, it's a complicated matter.
I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
TMobile, etc).
In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
(Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
that forever.
[quote]
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
from private businesses and personal incomes.
[/quote]
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
JG
[quote]
JG
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
Of course not.
*Whew*.
JG
JG[/quote] |
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| Rod Speed... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 11:17 am |
|
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Guest
|
John Galt wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...]
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly
appear if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real
life: Origin of ownership, funding of government, regulating
pollution, provision of road and communication infrastructure,
commercial monopolies, de- facto slavery from lack of worker's
rights, food and drug safety standards, the proliferation of
explosives, regulation of broadcast frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic
"utter depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and
where their selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of
coersion.
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety standard
issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a society of
mature individuals.
but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism,
pure fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are
tried in heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they
devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden
to address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at,
but I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to
solve" inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more
of an economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the
fact that free market controls were ineffective at getting
corporations to clean up after themselves, and thus environmental
regulation was a proper use of government.
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right
it depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking
about. I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's
only role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at
odds with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what
it means to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if
you will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of
statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it
is possible to have a political class that will work in the best
interests of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to
point out that there is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100%
taxation is perfect slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that
number the less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal
liberty than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's
irrelevant, since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a
society at the same time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money,
having none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But,
regardless, the statement is more of a thought exercise than
anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In
any case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be
optional, IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some sales
taxes levied only on materials over and above subsistence products.
It would be possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without
a car never using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such
as basic foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would
therefore live nearly tax free as a natural function of their
lifestyles, and the rich would pay most of the taxes. But it would be
possible for the very rich to live tax free if they were willing to
live in the manner of the poor.
There is a way to substitute
at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead
against it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete
in the open market. IOW: State capitalism.
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises almost always operate at a deficit that taxes
are required to fill.
[/quote]
That almost always is just plain wrong. Plenty of examples of profitable state capitalism.
[quote]Free marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own competitors.
[/quote]
Pity they dont when they are profitable. They object to them anyway.
[quote]Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is
always good for you, are you?
Of course not.
*Whew*.[/quote] |
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| Rod Speed... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 11:30 am |
|
|
|
Guest
|
John Galt wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 10:43 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...]
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly
appear if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real
life: Origin of ownership, funding of government, regulating
pollution, provision of road and communication infrastructure,
commercial monopolies, de- facto slavery from lack of worker's
rights, food and drug safety standards, the proliferation of
explosives, regulation of broadcast frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree,
but that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more
Calvinistic "utter depravity" condition where man is completely
selfish, and where their selfish urges must be controlled by a
high degree of coersion.
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety
standard issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a
society of mature individuals.
How might you fund the police and armed forces, if taxes are
voluntary?
They're use taxes and sales taxes on all goods which are
nonsubsistence. If you want to live anything over subsistence, you're
paying them. Most states already exempt subsistence goods from sales
taxation, so you'd be collecting at least as much as you are today. I
don't think there'd be much trouble collecting enough for police and
fire; you'd certainly be able to work out a defensive armed forces as
well. Would there be enough to fund an armed forces large enough to
maintain hegemonic control over the entire world and fend off a
Klingon attack force, as we do today? Unlikely, but who needs it?
(Libertarians trend neutral/isolationist.)
Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
If they jam signals nobody wins. Mature people usually figure out a
way to cut deals so everyone wins.
but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism,
pure fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are
tried in heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they
devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is
forbidden to address and which the market is fundamentally
unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at,
but I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to
solve" inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course
more of an economic libertarian than an ideologic one,
acknowledged the fact that free market controls were ineffective
at getting corporations to clean up after themselves, and thus
environmental regulation was a proper use of government.
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're
right it depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're
talking about. I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated)
government's only role should be to prevent direct attacks to our
life, liberty or property. That it should not be allowed to
regulate business or levy taxes (or at least not beyond what's
needed for this role).
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at
odds with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what
it means to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
Good to know.
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or,
if you will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of
statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that
it is possible to have a political class that will work in the
best interests of a populace, rather than themselves; and also
to point out that there is such a thing as economic freedom; if
100% taxation is perfect slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that
number the less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal
liberty than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's
irrelevant, since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a
society at the same time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money,
having none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty.
But, regardless, the statement is more of a thought exercise than
anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In
any case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be
optional, IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some
sales taxes levied only on materials over and above subsistence
products.
Why tax products but not income or property? Earning an income above
the tax-free threshhold, or owning land is also voluntary.
I think doing so would be perfectly in keeping with the basic
philosophy.
It would be
possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car
never using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as
basic foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would
therefore live nearly tax free as a natural function of their
lifestyles, and the rich would pay most of the taxes. But it would
be possible for the very rich to live tax free if they were willing
to live in the manner of the poor. There is a way to substitute
at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead
against it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete
in the open market. IOW: State capitalism.
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such
enterprises almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are
required to fill. Free marketers really don't see why they should
forced to fund their own competitors.
Almost all new businesses (of any kind) run at a loss for the first
few years. That's not to say they need extra capital added each year,
or that they won't eventually make a profit. There are plenty of
examples of profitable state-owned enterprises. Telcos, banks,
venture- capital, general investment funds. I think it's
short-sighted to rule them out because they require tax-funding to
start with. In the long run they can - and often do - decrease the
proportion of government funding that comes from tax.
There are definitely certain areas that can tolerate state-ownership
better than others. However, it's a complicated matter.
I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run.
We hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most
countries today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a
host of new independent companies, some startups, some foreign
sponsored (Vodaphone, TMobile, etc).
In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public
company is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively.
[/quote]
Then you need to get out more. Australia's Telstra's profit
leaves all the rest of its competitors COMBINED for dead.
Singtel isnt getting the shit kicked out of it by its competitors either.
[quote]The state-owned structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a status-quo mentality where the way to
earn more revenues was to ask for a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind in building
up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
[/quote]
That isnt universal either. In spades with Telstra and Singtel.
[quote]India's a particularly interesting case.
[/quote]
India has one hell of a capacity to completely fuck up all sorts of things.
[quote]They had two state-run companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market to competition in the
late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates (Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The public players have been unable to keep up; they
survive by providing bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses.
[/quote]
And that has not happened with Telstra or Singtel or the Japanese either.
[quote]Bharti charges a premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on the tax coffers,
[/quote]
Telstra was a massive contributer to the tax
coffers before it was sold off. Singtel in spades.
[quote]but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market
and ignore the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly competitive with the high-value competitors.
[/quote]
What matters is whether they are a drain on the tax system or not.
[quote]Same story, though --- India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies cohabiting the peninsula
else see the larger and poorer one stay like that forever.
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it makes with with the capital it's already got, the
less it has to take from private businesses and personal incomes.
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
[/quote]
But not with the libertarians being discussed.
[quote]The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
[/quote]
Thats a lie.
[quote]Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is
always good for you, are you?
Of course not.
*Whew*.[/quote] |
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| darwinist... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:26 pm |
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Guest
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On Nov 2, 12:56 am, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 10:43 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...]
Libertarian theory has no end of problems which would quickly appear
if anyone was foolish enough to try to apply it to real life: Origin
of ownership, funding of government, regulating pollution, provision
of road and communication infrastructure, commercial monopolies, de-
facto slavery from lack of worker's rights, food and drug safety
standards, the proliferation of explosives, regulation of broadcast
frequencies. I could go on.
You could (and although some of your problems are a bit silly),
Which ones are they?
Libertarianism assumes that a society can be built in which people
become personally responsible; a bit pie in the sky, we'd agree, but
that's the ideal. Much of your list assumes a more Calvinistic "utter
depravity" condition where man is completely selfish, and where their
selfish urges must be controlled by a high degree of coersion.
Which parts of the list are you talking about, specifically?
I see the pollution issues, monopoly issues, drug and safety standard
issues as being valid. The rest would get worked out in a society of
mature individuals.
How might you fund the police and armed forces, if taxes are
voluntary?
They're use taxes and sales taxes on all goods which are nonsubsistence.
If you want to live anything over subsistence, you're paying them. Most
states already exempt subsistence goods from sales taxation, so you'd be
collecting at least as much as you are today. I don't think there'd be
much trouble collecting enough for police and fire; you'd certainly be
able to work out a defensive armed forces as well. Would there be enough
to fund an armed forces large enough to maintain hegemonic control over
the entire world and fend off a Klingon attack force, as we do today?
Unlikely, but who needs it? (Libertarians trend neutral/isolationist.)
Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
If they jam signals nobody wins. Mature people usually figure out a way
to cut deals so everyone wins.
[/quote]
Mature's got little to do with it. Like predatory pricing, the larger
companies can lose money in the short term in order to use dirty
tactics to drive the others out of business, in this case by over-
powering the other's transmissions. I predict you'd get a monopoly
quickly, at least in each region.
[quote]but
there would be no point. You could make the same sort of list of
"problems" for pure democracy, pure socialism, pure anarchism, pure
fascism, pure communism. Whenever any of these systems are tried in
heterogenous groups larger than commune-size, they devolve rather quickly.
Yes, they are problems under any political view, but for
libertarianism they are problems that the government is forbidden to
address and which the market is fundamentally unable to solve.
I don't know which genre of libertarian theory you're looking at, but
I'd have to disagree that there's any notion of "forbidden to solve"
inherent in libertarianism. Milton Friedman, of course more of an
economic libertarian than an ideologic one, acknowledged the fact that
free market controls were ineffective at getting corporations to clean
up after themselves, and thus environmental regulation was a proper use
of government.
Not forbidden to solve, but forbidden to even address. You're right it
depends on which flavour of libertarian thought we're talking about.
I'm talking about the idea that (roughly stated) government's only
role should be to prevent direct attacks to our life, liberty or
property. That it should not be allowed to regulate business or levy
taxes (or at least not beyond what's needed for this role).
That's an extreme view, it should be said. Libertarianism is not at odds
with the idea that people need to sit down and hammer out what it means
to have a civil society, at least as far as I am aware.
Good to know.
All these theories are, to their holders, utopian ideals; or, if you
will "In a perfect world, wouldn't it be great if....?"
In practice, libertarians are simply the polar opposites of statists.
Yes. It's like solving the problem of obesity by banning all food
except eggs and bananas.
Quite so.
They exist to point out the folly of anyone ever thinking that it is
possible to have a political class that will work in the best interests
of a populace, rather than themselves; and also to point out that there
is such a thing as economic freedom; if 100% taxation is perfect
slavery, the obviously the higher taxation rates move to that number the
less personal liberty one has.
On the one hand, that is false: There's a lot more to personal liberty
than just the rate of taxation. On the other hand it's irrelevant,
since you can't have 100% personal liberty and a society at the same
time.
I don't agree that it's false. In any economy that uses money, having
none renders you unable to enjoy the fruits of liberty. But, regardless,
the statement is more of a thought exercise than anything else.
What I mean is you can have a society with 5% taxation that's less
free than a society with 20%. There's more to freedom than tax. In any
case if you can suggest a way to fund the government other than
taxation, I'm sure we're all listening.
Well, in a "libertarian paradise", I assume all taxes would be optional,
IOW, all collected in the form of use taxes and some sales taxes levied
only on materials over and above subsistence products.
Why tax products but not income or property? Earning an income above
the tax-free threshhold, or owning land is also voluntary.
I think doing so would be perfectly in keeping with the basic philosophy.
[/quote]
Fair enough.
[quote]
It would be
possible to live tax free if you lived in a hovel without a car never
using a road and buying nothing but nontaxable items such as basic
foodstuffs, pharamceuticals, and the like. The poor would therefore live
nearly tax free as a natural function of their lifestyles, and the rich
would pay most of the taxes. But it would be possible for the very rich
to live tax free if they were willing to live in the manner of the poor.
There is a way to substitute
at least some of the funding, but libertarians tend to be dead against
it: A set of state-owned for-profit companies that compete in the open
market. IOW: State capitalism.
Well, free marketers tend to be dead against it, since such enterprises
almost always operate at a deficit that taxes are required to fill. Free
marketers really don't see why they should forced to fund their own
competitors.
Almost all new businesses (of any kind) run at a loss for the first
few years. That's not to say they need extra capital added each year,
or that they won't eventually make a profit. There are plenty of
examples of profitable state-owned enterprises. Telcos, banks, venture-
capital, general investment funds. I think it's short-sighted to rule
them out because they require tax-funding to start with. In the long
run they can - and often do - decrease the proportion of government
funding that comes from tax.
There are definitely certain areas that can tolerate state-ownership
better than others. However, it's a complicated matter.
I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
TMobile, etc).
In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
[/quote]
It's important to distinguish between three different stages: A public
monopoly in telecommunications, a publicly-owned competitor in an open
market; and a fully privatised industry. In the first case the public
company tends to lose money and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
since what choice do people have), in the second case they make money
and encourage competition and in the third case a lot of (remote)
people miss out or fall behind on new services because there is no
longer a public company to ensure universal service. At least that's
how it progressed in Australia. I haven't looked into the details of
other countries, but I expect this is not a unique case.
[quote]India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
(Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
[/quote]
Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed only
to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're only
mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
[quote]India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
that forever.
[/quote]
By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
useful service at the same time then even better.
[quote]
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
from private businesses and personal incomes.
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
[/quote]
Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
it's not worth ruling it out. Such investments would include banking,
venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
it's profitable.
I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
the organisation in question.
[quote]JG
JG
Hell, you're not running around thinking that big goverment is always
good for you, are you?
Of course not.
*Whew*.
JG
JG[/quote] |
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| Rod Speed... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:26 pm |
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Guest
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Les Cargill wrote
[quote]John Galt wrote
darwinist wrote
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it makes with with the capital it's already got,
the less it has to take from private businesses and personal incomes.
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me. The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical
case.
If it made a profit, government probably wouldn't be doing it to start with.
[/quote]
Wrong with hordes of telcos.
[quote]Government is not the source of innovation, in general.
[/quote]
Doesnt need to be to make a profit.
[quote]Things like fire departments, police departments
have evolved to be public. And defense of land claims (which includes "provide for the common defense" )
is the reason we have government at all.
[/quote]
Irrelevant to what is being discussed, whether some govt operations are profitable. |
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| Les Cargill... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:41 pm |
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Guest
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John Galt wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
snip
The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
from private businesses and personal incomes.
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me.
The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
JG
[/quote]
If it made a profit, government probably wouldn't be
doing it to start with. Government is not the
source of innovation, in general.
Things like fire departments, police departments
have evolved to be public. And defense of land
claims (which includes "provide for the common defense" )
is the reason we have government at all.
--
Les Cargill |
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| darwinist... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:09 pm |
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Guest
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On Nov 2, 10:21 am, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
[quote]darwinist wrote:
On Nov 2, 12:56 am, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 10:43 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 9:40 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, John Galt <kady... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
darwinist wrote:
[...][/quote]
[quote]Or divide up transmission bandwidth, if people can just jam each
others signals and say "I was using this frequency first"?
If they jam signals nobody wins. Mature people usually figure out a way
to cut deals so everyone wins.
Mature's got little to do with it. Like predatory pricing, the larger
companies can lose money in the short term in order to use dirty
tactics to drive the others out of business, in this case by over-
powering the other's transmissions. I predict you'd get a monopoly
quickly, at least in each region.
If you do, you move against it; since libertarianism requires a free
market perspective, it cannot logically oppose anti-monopoly regs, since
monopolies subvert free markets.
[/quote]
If it's a known (I would say inevitable) problem, wouldn't it be more
efficient to prevent it than to counter it? After all it's not like
the available bandwidth is unpredictable or variable the way a market
is. You can release more of it for public use of course, but the
resource itself is of a known and fixed quantity.
[...]
[quote]
I am very focused on the worldwide telecommunications marketplace with
my job, so I can give you some background here. Up until ATT
divestiture, virtually every telecom in the world was government run. We
hit a worldwide wave of privatization in the 1990's. So, most countries
today have (a) the "old" formerly public company and (b) a host of new
independent companies, some startups, some foreign sponsored (Vodaphone,
TMobile, etc).
In every case of which I am aware, the old-line formerly public company
is getting the shit kicked out of it competitively. The state-owned
structure was not only stifling to innovation, but it created a
status-quo mentality where the way to earn more revenues was to ask for
a rate increase instead of innovate. As a result, they are well-behind
in building up the infrastructure to support value-added services.
It's important to distinguish between three different stages: A public
monopoly in telecommunications, a publicly-owned competitor in an open
market; and a fully privatised industry. In the first case the public
company tends to lose money and lag behind in r&d (not surprisingly,
since what choice do people have), in the second case they make money
and encourage competition
Haven't seen this in practice.
[/quote]
Well you need look no further than the example I cited. There was a
period between opening up the market to competition, and privatising
the government-owned player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra
[quote]and in the third case a lot of (remote)
people miss out or fall behind on new services because there is no
longer a public company to ensure universal service. At least that's
how it progressed in Australia. I haven't looked into the details of
other countries, but I expect this is not a unique case.
Probably not, but not all countries are like Australia (or India, for
that matter). It would be hard to have remote people lose out on a
service in Belgium, for example.
[/quote]
Fair point
[quote]India's a particularly interesting case. They had two state-run
companies (BNSL and VNSL), and kept them private but opened their market
to competition in the late 90's. Most of the big Indian conglomerates
(Tata, Bharti, Reliance, Spice, etc.) got in. Airtel (owned by Bharti)
now has 100M subscribers and is tooled to grow to 200m by 2014. The
public players have been unable to keep up; they survive by providing
bare-bones service on the cheap to the Indian masses. Bharti charges a
premium for premium services. The public companies are a net drain on
the tax coffers, but in the Indian case it's not a bad call keeping them
around, since the privates would focus on the high-end market and ignore
the villages, where there is little or no wireline.
Are these companies meant to be profitable or are they designed only
to be a public service? It's possible to be both but if you're only
mandated to be one or the other then likely that's all you'll be.
They were originally designed to be profitable, but the objective
changed to public utility after it was clear that they were unable to
compete.
[/quote]
I'd appreciate any references you've got, but from my cursory
research, here are two public indian telcos that have a positive net-
income.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTNL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSNL
[quote]India also owns about fourteen banks, none of which are particularly
competitive with the high-value competitors. Same story, though ---
India needs to provide services to two entirely different societies
cohabiting the peninsula else see the larger and poorer one stay like
that forever.
By "particularly competitive" do you mean "profitable at all" or "as
successful as some of the private players"? I submit that a profitable
entity is all the government needs to reduce taxes, as long as it's
only a little bit competitive it can stay around. If it's providing a
useful service at the same time then even better.
The government can do whatever it pleases as long as it doesn't fund the
public competitor with the taxes of the private competitors. If that
occurs, all you have is a welfare program.
[/quote]
It has to get the startup capital from somewhere, but as for
*continued* funding from tax-revenue, I agree. Then it's just
corporate welfare, which is possibly the worst kind of welfare.
[quote]The government has to get funding from somewhere. The more money it
makes with with the capital it's already got, the less it has to take
from private businesses and personal incomes.
If it could be assured of turning a profit, that would be fine with me..
The reverse is, unfortunatly, the typical case.
Well then the question is whether a loss is typical because that's
inevitably the case, or whether there are sensible investments that
government can make which will be more likely than not to create a
profitable company. I suggest it's the latter, or at the very least
it's not worth ruling it out.
I would suggest (having done years of business with both public and
private) that there is an inherent difference in the mindset of the
public and the private employee. A very common joke in sales is to never
schedule a meeting that could run long in a government entitty at 4PM.
At 5PM, everyone walks out the door, even if you're in mid sentence. Not
so in the private entity.
[/quote]
I'd agree for public-service departments, but that's a very different
beast from a for-profit business who just happen to have the
government as their majority, controlling or even sole shareholder.
[quote]Such investments would include banking,
venture capital, infrastructure. But there are others. In Australia we
have a "private" health insurance company that's wholly government
owned and competes (on some fronts) with the universal medicare, and
it's profitable.
I expect the government could make a profit while promoting
competition in almost any industry, as long as that's the mandate of
the organisation in question.
Again, history has far more examples of government companies losing
money than the reverse.
JG
[/quote]
We don't need the word "government" in that sentence. History has far
more examples of companies losing money than the reverse. To my mind
this is an argument (public or private) to get it right, by learning
from past mistakes and taking a sensible approach. It's not an
argument to dismiss the endeavour, especially when it's a way to
reduce the proportion of funding taken through tax. |
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| Bret Cahill... |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:16 pm |
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Guest
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[quote]What happened centuries ago hardly matters any more.
[/quote]
In that case centuries from now no one will care if today's landowners
are guillotined.
Bret Cahill |
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