[Rei Murasame]

Since peasants work their land, it is not unimproved and so they can own their land.

What if they own it but are not working it because of reduced demand, or lack of a farming-bailout in a monsoon, or because they are working in the city and just holding the land to one day do something else with it? If you don't think that land can be an asset that just sits there, you will end up dispossessing peasants at some point in time.

It wrong to assume that libertarianism would rely on the support of big money. Big money is not pro free market, they usually have a symbiotic relationship with government.

Indeed, hence why it's a little ironic, isn't it?

Who would support libertarianism? Well, libertarians of course. Libertarianism can only succeed if we manage to convince people that libertarianism is just.

Which class of people? You are thinking that you are going to get the working class to march out against the rest of society under a black and yellow flag? The black and yellow flag of no guaranteed health care, no protections for unions, and no social services?

That's impossible, even if they joined you, they don't have any way to give you money to fund your movement because your stance - as a libertarian - is to prevent them from organising into a coercive political force that raises funds.

Do you see the problem here? It's a class interest problem, there is no class of people that can support you. The only class that will support you is what you call 'big money', and the only use big money has for you is to bring you out to explain to people how all their social services have to be cut, while not taking action against 'big money' who are in government drinking out of the trough of tax money. That is the meaning of the Tea Party, that is what they are.

Regarding convincing people that 'libertarianism is just' (or any 'ism' really), that doesn't mean anything as far as I can tell. It's control of funds and resources - be they human resources or raw materials - which precedes everything, which is why the issue of class is so important:

Whatever unhappy vicissitudes politics has passed through since the glory of Greece set it on its way, it is as true now as ever that successful statesmanship is founded on enduring principles and not upon the appraisement or nice balancing of material considerations. There is a practical sagacity, notably in the obiter dicta of Bacon and later in Cromwell's policy, that does not disregard the economic factors; but that sagacity turns to cunning or opportunism if it lose faith in the fundamental principles disclosed by time and circumstance. This is not to deny the main fact of modern industrialism that economic power precedes and dominates political action. There is a sense in which that aphorism is permanently true; another sense in which it is a polemic peculiar to existing conditions.

It is permanently true in that statesmanship must possess the material means to encompass its ends, precisely as one must have the fare and sustenance before proceeding on a journey. But whilst the fare must be available as a condition precedent to the journey, it remains a means to the end. Our aphorism is a polemic peculiar to private capitalism in that the fare to continue the metaphor is controlled by an interested section of the community, which can consequently decide the time and direction of the journey. But when the fare and sustenance pass from private to communal control, in the process increasing in abundance and availability, we find ourselves as a people free to embark on whatever spiritual or political enterprise we desire.

Economic power is not finally found in wealth but in the control of its abundance or scarcity. If I possessed the control of the water supply, my economic power would be stupendous; but with equal access to water by the whole body of citizens, that economic power is dispersed and the community may erect swimming-baths or fountains or artificial lakes without my permission. Not only so; but the abundance of water, which economically considered is of boundless value, grows less serious as a practical issue the more abundant it becomes.

Upon the substantial truth of this hangs our conception of citizenship and State policy. I have consistently disclaimed for the future Guilds the control of wealth, conceding to them no more and no less than the control, through monopoly, of their labour-power.

[...]

The dominance of economic power depends, therefore, upon two main considerations artificially, by the private control of wealth; fundamentally, by a natural scarcity. If the former be abolished and the latter overcome, the [socialist] State possesses the means to achieve its purposes, so far as they depend upon economic resources. In this connection, it is not without significance that common parlance often describes a propertied man as "a man of means," and never so far as I know as "a man of ends." But it is usual to refer to a statesman as one having ends to be served by political methods. These philological distinctions are at bottom instinctive citizenship, a recognition that wealth is a means to an end.

I like to shorten that passage to the meme, "Economic Power Precedes Political Power".

[Rothbardian]

But isn't that what always happens in the end?

Nope. Usually the way a successful anarchy ends is by a neighboring government taking it over. Which is extremely difficult, and usually more trouble than its worth.

Billions of people live in literal anarchy today and the reason you never hear about it is because nothing ever happens there. I've traveled through parts of southeast asia and seen it for myself.

[Rei Murasame]

That's an incredible claim. What part of Southeast Asia are you saying is in anarchy?

[Rothbardian]

That's an incredible claim. What part of Southeast Asia are you saying is in anarchy?

I visited the Philippines, but there are lots of other places not limited to Asia. I listened to a recording of a lecture from a professor in anthropology from Yale on this and got to see it first hand.

Basically the country is obviously nominally under the constitutional government of the Philippines, but once you leave the major cities the government is almost non existent. There are little regional governments as well based on a model I'm almost certain they inherited from the Spanish but again, their power and influence is very limited geographically. There are entire societies of people living on the outskirts of governmental power and influence and oddly enough you don't see them clamoring to create their own governments or to beg the Filipino government to incorporate them.

I got a kick out of seeing how industrious people can be. For example they have a lot of the same regulations we do; their government is basically a 3rd world copy of ours. Yet people open businesses right on their front lawns, usually just little shops where people can buy bottled water, snacks, cell phone minutes, etc. When I asked if there were any laws against that the explanation I was given was that it is but people do it anyway because there's no one to enforce those laws.

Now, according to everything I've been told by statists and their hobbesian view of humanity, those communities should have been up in flames as everyone tries to rip off their neighbors in a war of all against all. Yet this doesn't happen, and it's because in these communities reputation is everything. Social norms develop naturally and to violate them means to be ostracized from the rest of the community. Which is basically how 99% of humanity lives, they just have this brainwashed delusion that black is not black and white is not white unless a man behind a podium in front of a flag says it is.

[Eran]

So, let's say all those land-lords band together and decide to harmonise their opinions and create something that they call 'social policy'? Is that a government being created, or is that a non-government that just so happens to have social policies?

As long as they don't use force (or threat of force) against newcomers or those wishing to break the "band", they are not a government.

What has been created is a private organisation that happens to have policies.

Such organisation could, in theory, have great power over the residents of the community. It is important to note, however, that in practice, such organisations, as long as they pursue commercially unsound policies, never last without resorting to government (real government) force to grant them special privileges.

This means that we'd be in the dictatorship of landowners and businessowners.

Not in the least. You are presuming that landowners and business-owners operate as a single group, coordinating their decisions. Historically, nothing could be further from the truth.

By the same logic, we are today in the dictatorship of farmers (as we critically depend on them to grow our food), as well as that of the providers of any critical service.

We don't feel we are in the dictatorship of farmers because farmers compete with each other, rather than form a cartel.

Similarly, landowners (of which there are literally many millions in each and every country, as many people own their own land, and land ownership, outside government, is rarely concentrated) would (and do) compete with each other for selling their land (or its services, through leasing).

Which class of people?

Which class of people opposed slavery? Which class of men agreed to given women the vote?

People aren't neatly divided into, much less operate exclusively as members of, specific classes.

Ideas can appeal to all sorts of people. Ideologies often cut across socio-economic classes. Libertarianism does.

What if they own it but are not working it because of reduced demand, or lack of a farming-bailout in a monsoon, or because they are working in the city and just holding the land to one day do something else with it? If you don't think that land can be an asset that just sits there, you will end up dispossessing peasants at some point in time.

If they temporarily aren't working it, they maintain their ownership. If they actually abandoned it, it cannot be of much value, can it?

You are thinking that you are going to get the working class to march out against the rest of society under a black and yellow flag? The black and yellow flag of no guaranteed health care, no protections for unions, and no social services?

...

Do you see the problem here? It's a class interest problem, there is no class of people that can support you.

Libertarianism is in almost everybody's self-interest. The working class, if they properly understood the system under which they live, would no more feel bad about giving up guaranteed health care than the slaves of the past did giving up their guaranteed food and board from the hands of their owners.

The middle-classes would clearly benefit from increased choice, lower taxes, higher growth, and, emotionally, getting off the need to fund the corporate welfare state.

The truly productive wealthy will relish having the chains that bind them removed, being able to fully realise their potential in creating wealth, and enjoying the esteem that would properly be theirs.

Only the ruling elite, politicians and crony-capitalists would stand to lose (and even them, only in the short term). I wouldn't expect to persuade them. But then, every revolution in history involved the dispossession of a group of people which, prior to the revolution, appeared powerful to the point of invincibility.

Basically the country is obviously nominally under the constitutional government of the Philippines, but once you leave the major cities the government is almost non existent.

Indeed. I can share my impressions from a few visits to India. In particular, the slums there operate as a virtual anarchy, and a relatively successful one.

[Rei Murasame]

I think that the fundamental problem with both of you is that you both deny the existence of class (not only that, you also seem willing to deny the existence of the US Chamber of Commerce). Since I don't want to have to be the one to explain how class works from the ground up, I will invite a socialist to do so if any of them have the time.

I'll give my response after that happens, since it will save me a lot of typing that way.

Regarding the idealisation of South East and South Asian slums, I will leave that point uncontested, but only because there is no way to respond to those comments without risking being carded. I find it really a little enraging that you all seem to see those kinds of places as a good existence. You only think it's cute because it is nowhere near your side of the world, and you don't know anyone who had to live in it. I'll leave it at that.

[Phred]

I find it really a little enraging that you all seem to see those kinds of places as a good existence. You only think it's cute because it is nowhere near your side of the world, and you don't know anyone who had to live in it. I'll leave it at that.

I have lived in one of those kinds of places for over twenty-five years now. Until very recently (just a few years ago, really) the government here was so lazy/incompetent that the situation Rothbardian describes prevailed nearly everywhere other than in the two largest cities, and even there the government was so incompetent in so many areas that to all intents and purposes enforcement was just another word in the dictionary, not something that most people ever experienced to any great degree. As a matter of fact, that was one of the biggest factors in my decision to give up a very promising career in sales management to move to a Third World country where I knew maybe two dozen words of the language spoken by 99% of the populace. Here the government does next to nothing for me. But they ask next to nothing of me either. I like that kind of arrangement. Very much.

Is it a "good existence"? You bet. Not perfect, of course. There's things about this place I'd change if I could. But on the whole, yeah... it's a good existence. And most native-born Dominicans would agree with me.


Phred

[Eran]

I have a different perspective.

I am not going to try to argue that living in an Indian slum is better than living in an American suburb.

That wasn't my point.

Rather, the point is to show that a community can exist in stable and (reasonably) peaceful co-existence without the effective government law-enforcement.


As for classes, I believe they are of diminishing relevance to today's society. Politically, classes are much less homogeneous than they used to be. Immigration, education, upward mobility and shared cultural experiences all act to make class less and less relevant in explaining or predicting people's behaviour.

[Rothbardian]

Indeed. I can share my impressions from a few visits to India. In particular, the slums there operate as a virtual anarchy, and a relatively successful one.

I've heard the Indian government is roughly as corrupt too. That's the thing about third world countries, their governments are so blatantly corrupt. I'd love for some of our government loving socialists to spend some time in a place like that. It's hard to claim we need a government to protect us in a place where the police are as liable to rob you as anyone else and you can get any government official to do whatever you want as long as you can afford to pay an extra fee.

What I think is interesting is that most statists would say that this means that is not a 'legitimate' government. Yet the only difference between those third world everyone-for-hire governments and western governments is the cost. Here it's only the upper 1% that can afford those kinds of favors. Seems like the third world hell-holes are much closer to the democratic dream they are all pining for since the services of government are more accessible to the general public..

[Someone5]

I've heard the Indian government is roughly as corrupt too. That's the thing about third world countries, their governments are so blatantly corrupt. I'd love for some of our government loving socialists to spend some time in a place like that. It's hard to claim we need a government to protect us in a place where the police are as liable to rob you as anyone else and you can get any government official to do whatever you want as long as you can afford to pay an extra fee.

What's the point in robbing people when there's nothing to buy? What's the point in charging a bribe when you can get it anyway without bribery? What the fuck does corruption within capitalist states have to do with socialism?

What I think is interesting is that most statists would say that this means that is not a 'legitimate' government.

What I think is interesting is that you think that sort of corruption isn't a natural part of capitalism.

[Rich]

Is it a "good existence"? You bet. Not perfect, of course. There's things about this place I'd change if I could. But on the whole, yeah... it's a good existence. And most native-born Dominicans would agree with me.

Praise be to the American Federal government. It was of course the noble intervention by the Americans in 1965 that laid the basis for the Dominic's relative stability since. Its just tragic that despite their noble sacrifices in Vietnam, America was unable to hold back the Communist hordes and give Vietnamese patriots similar opportunities.

[Phred]

It was of course the noble intervention by the Americans in 1965 that laid the basis for the Dominic's relative stability since.

Indeed it was. There are next to no Dominicans who were alive at the time who aren't intensely grateful to the Americans for that. Without America's intervention this place would have ended up like so many other Banana Republics - badly misruled by junta after junta who murdered their way to power through coup after coup. Instead there have been regular, closely-monitored democratic elections for close to half a century now. It is true that sometimes the people elected are idiots, but that is true everywhere.


Phred

[Quantum]

That's the thing about third world countries, their governments are so blatantly corrupt. I'd love for some of our government loving socialists to spend some time in a place like that. It's hard to claim we need a government to protect us in a place where the police are as liable to rob you as anyone else and you can get any government official to do whatever you want as long as you can afford to pay an extra fee.

The Third World tend to be disorganised and backwards in general, so there's no surprise that the governments there tend to be corrupt and not adhere to the rule of law. Believe it or not, not all governments are the same, so using some disorganised Third World country to prove that the First World doesn't need government is disingenuous. First World governments generally respect the rule of law and perform most of its functions, unlike Third World governments.

[Rothbardian]

What's the point in robbing people when there's nothing to buy? What's the point in charging a bribe when you can get it anyway without bribery? What the fuck does corruption within capitalist states have to do with socialism?

What I think is interesting is that you think that sort of corruption isn't a natural part of capitalism.

Everything bad in the world is capitalism, and everything good in the world is socialism.

The Third World tend to be disorganised and backwards in general, so there's no surprise that the governments there tend to be corrupt and not adhere to the rule of law. Believe it or not, not all governments are the same, so using some disorganised Third World country to prove that the First World doesn't need government is disingenuous. First World governments generally respect the rule of law and perform most of its functions, unlike Third World governments.

I'd like you to name one first world government that you think is not corrupt for me.

Just one.

[Eran]

First World governments generally respect the rule of law and perform most of its functions, unlike Third World governments.

I would like to challenge both parts of your statement.

First World governments do not abide by, let alone respect, anything like the rule of law. Governments have the power to change the law as they see fit. In what substantive sense do they respect it?

How is, to take a current example, an arbitrary decision by the Cypriot government to confiscate a large fraction of people's deposit, consistent with "respect for the rule of law"?

As for "performing most of their function", that, of course, depends on what you see their functions as being. If government's function is defined in terms of what it actually does, the statement is an empty tautology.

If its function is to provide certain services without reference to quality and cost, you might be right. But that is a very loose standard most people would reject completely when it comes to private sector offering.

To be meaningful you must be able to argue that First World governments provide their citizen with services of reasonable quality and cost. Is that what you believe? If so, how do you know?