The ultimate goal of your ideology? - Page 9 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Classical liberalism. The individual before the state, non-interventionist, free-market based society.
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#14427551
taxizen wrote:In contrast the statist aspires to be one of these..
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Here's a little parable you might enjoy:

I see mankind as a herd of cattle inside a fenced enclosure. Outside the fence are green pastures and plenty for the cattle to eat, while inside the fence there is not quite grass enough for the cattle. Consequently, the cattle are tramping underfoot what little grass there is and goring each other to death in their struggle for existence.

I saw the owner of the herd come to them, and when he saw their pitiful condition he was filled with compassion for them and thought of all he could do to improve their condition.

So he called his friends together and asked them to assist him in cutting grass from outside the fence and throwing it over the fence to the cattle. And that they called Charity.

Then, because the calves were dying off and not growing up into serviceable cattle, he arranged that they should each have a pint of milk every morning for breakfast.

Because they were dying off in the cold nights, he put up beautiful well-drained and well-ventilated cowsheds for the cattle.

Because they were goring each other in the struggle for existence, he put corks on the horns of the cattle, so that the wounds they gave each other might not be so serious. Then he reserved a part of the enclosure for the old bulls and the old cows over 70 years of age.

In fact, he did everything he could think of to improve the condition of the cattle, and when I asked him why he did not do the one obvious thing, break down the fence, and let the cattle out, he answered: "If I let the cattle out, I should no longer be able to milk them."


The socialist Samuel Leight attributed the above to Leo Tolstoy. Of course, Tolstoy being an anarchist, the parable is a condemnation of capitalists and landlords, not just the state, though you'll refuse to see the connection in the former cases.
#14427553
taxizen wrote:In contrast the statist aspires to be one of these..
Image

Nah, we only want to do that to libertarians. Well, that or feed them to the cows.

Funnily enough, battery farming is a perfect example of capitalist "efficiency" and "innovation". Ironic, isn't it?
#14427582
DigitalBluster wrote:The socialist Samuel Leight attributed the above to Leo Tolstoy. Of course, Tolstoy being an anarchist, the parable is a condemnation of capitalists and landlords, not just the state, though you'll refuse to see the connection in the former cases.

Yes this parable is very much the matter. I somewhat doubt that Tolstoy was really bundling capitalists in with statists though and I literally can't fathom how the practice of trade and investment, which is what makes a person a capitalist, can be equated to the practice of tax and conscription, which is what makes a person a statist. I don't even think there is a subtle distinction which could be easily missed by a crude mind, they are glaring opposites.
#14428150
Heisenberg wrote:Funnily enough, battery farming is a perfect example of capitalist "efficiency" and "innovation". Ironic, isn't it?

What is so exclusively capitalist about striving for efficiency and innovation? Sure capitalism is best at achieving those. But even socialist societies strive for those things.
#14468292
DigitalBluster wrote:Here's a little parable you might enjoy:

I see mankind as a herd of cattle inside a fenced enclosure. Outside the fence are green pastures and plenty for the cattle to eat, while inside the fence there is not quite grass enough for the cattle. Consequently, the cattle are tramping underfoot what little grass there is and goring each other to death in their struggle for existence.

I saw the owner of the herd come to them, and when he saw their pitiful condition he was filled with compassion for them and thought of all he could do to improve their condition.

So he called his friends together and asked them to assist him in cutting grass from outside the fence and throwing it over the fence to the cattle. And that they called Charity.

Then, because the calves were dying off and not growing up into serviceable cattle, he arranged that they should each have a pint of milk every morning for breakfast.

Because they were dying off in the cold nights, he put up beautiful well-drained and well-ventilated cowsheds for the cattle.

Because they were goring each other in the struggle for existence, he put corks on the horns of the cattle, so that the wounds they gave each other might not be so serious. Then he reserved a part of the enclosure for the old bulls and the old cows over 70 years of age.

In fact, he did everything he could think of to improve the condition of the cattle, and when I asked him why he did not do the one obvious thing, break down the fence, and let the cattle out, he answered: "If I let the cattle out, I should no longer be able to milk them."

Here's a subtler but more insightful parable, courtesy of Henry George:

Near the window by which I write a great bull is tethered by a ring in his nose. Grazing round and round, he has wound his rope about the stake until now he stands a close prisoner, tantalised by rich grass he cannot reach, unable even to toss his head to rid him of the flies that cluster on his shoulders. Now and again he struggles vainly, and then, after pitiful bellowings, relapses into silent misery.

This bull, a very type of massive strength, who, because he has not wit enough to see how he might be free, suffers want in sight of plenty, and is helplessly preyed upon by weaker creatures, seems to me no unfit emblem of the working masses. In all lands, men whose toil creates abounding wealth are pinched with poverty, and, while advancing civilisation opens wider vistas and awakens new desires, are held down to brutish levels by animal needs. Bitterly conscious of injustice, feeling in their inmost souls that they were made for more than so narrow a life, they, too, spasmodically struggle and cry out. But until they trace effect to cause, until they see how they are fettered and how they may be freed, their struggles and outcries are as vain as those of the bull. Nay, they are vainer. I shall go out and drive the bull in a way that will untwist his rope. But who shall drive men to freedom? Till they use the reason with which they have been gifted, nothing can avail. For them there is no special providence.


The ring in humanity's nose is property in land: their liberty has been removed by that simple but subtle instrument, so that in honestly pursuing their livelihoods, they are inexorably reduced to utter confinement, oppression and enslavement, their suffering unrelieved and their toil unrewarded. How many pathetic cattle (or sheep), right on this forum, declare that property in land is the path to "liberty"... if only one will consent "voluntarily" to spend the decades of one's productive working life in debt servitude to a mortgage lender?
#14468296
Eran wrote:There are several separate issues at work.
1. Welfare does reduce the incentives to work. In England I have seen people interviewed on TV explaining that they have chosen welfare over work as a "lifestyle choice".
2. In the US, the War on Drugs has ruined millions of lives, while tempting countless people into life of crime and violence
3. Professional licensing and zoning, in addition to mountains of business regulations, make it difficult or impossible for many people to start their own business or just work for themselves
4. Taxes and product regulations make everyday necessities much more expensive than they need to be

More importantly, every producer is forced to pay for government TWICE: once in taxes to pay for the desirable services and infrastructure that are most efficiently provided by the community, and then again in land rent to landowners, for access to the very same services and infrastructure his taxes just paid for. This system exists so that the landowner can collect the latter payment without having to contribute anything whatever in return.
#14468303
Only a tiny fraction of the lives ruined in association with drugs were ruined due to drugs themselves. The vast majority were ruined due to drug prohibition. From millions spending years in jail, to countless thousands becoming victims of violence associated with prohibition culture. Even most property crime associated with drug use is a direct result of drugs being much more expensive due to prohibition than they would be in a free market.

Bounce wrote:This is ridiculous.

No, it is your claims that are ridiculous, as well as objectively false.
The cheapness of drugs is not going to change the outcome.

Already proved false where drugs have been legalized, as in Portugal. Are more than 1% of Portugal's entire population locked in steel cages for doing something that violated no one's rights? No? Then you have already admitted that the outcome is different.
An addict will use till they need the money, at which point they will commit crime.

No, that is just false and RIDICULOUS garbage from you. Addicts try to use just enough to get the effect they want. It is the unknown purity of illegal drugs that leads to most ODs.

When heroin was made illegal in the USA 100 years ago, there were an estimated 250,000 heroin addicts (that's about how many the annual sales of heroin would supply). While their health was not optimal (most suffered from severe constipation, and many were poorly nourished because they found it hard to hold down a job), they did not constitute a significant social problem. Certainly they were no more likely to steal to support their habits than smokers or alcoholics. Indeed, it was even known at the time that alcohol was the only commonly used drug whose USE, not prohibition, was associated with violent crime. That fact remains true today (there is some evidence that use of crystal meth slightly elevates the risk of violence, though meth users tend to be paranoid, and not violent as long as they can get their drug).
There are no links between the drop of price in drugs and the reduction of crime.

More of your ridiculous and anti-scientific garbage. You have already been proved wrong by the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
The war on drugs is problematic, but unrestricted use of drugs would not be better.

We already know that it would be better. The experiment has been done, and was completed more than 80 years ago. The American people are just not intelligent enough to understand the results of that experiment, as they were 80 years ago.
At most we can say, in a free market, that people's compensation, tends towards their marginal productivity.

Nope. Wages are determined by the productivity of labor on marginal land. The landowner takes all production in excess of that amount.
The idea that marginal productivity relates to someones economic production and thus their economic worth seems pretty intuitive to me.

Intuitive and plausible, but false.
If you're fine with the existence of a hereditary capital class, I guess we'll have no agreement here. However, I feel that it undermines the equality principles of libertarianism.

It's the hereditary, parasitic landowning class that feudal "libertarians" brown-nose for, and you are mistaken if you think they have any interest in equality of rights or opportunity.
#14468308
MaxHen wrote:Truth to Power, how do you propose land be managed if not by private owners?

Mainly by exclusive private users who would pay just compensation to the community of those whom they excluded from the land.

Possession and use of land would be administered by government, as it always is in any peaceful and orderly society beyond the stage of nomadic herding. That's what government is: the sovereign authority over a particular area of land. The only question is whether government will discharge that duty in the interests of all, and to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor, or will instead sacrifice the rights of the people to the narrow financial interests of a small, wealthy, greedy, idle, parasitic minority of landowners, as current governments in capitalist countries do.
#14468343
Truth To Power wrote:
Possession and use of land would be administered by government, as it always is in any peaceful and orderly society beyond the stage of nomadic herding. That's what government is: the sovereign authority over a particular area of land. The only question is whether government will discharge that duty in the interests of all, and to secure and reconcile the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor, or will instead sacrifice the rights of the people to the narrow financial interests of a small, wealthy, greedy, idle, parasitic minority of landowners, as current governments in capitalist countries do.

How would the government determine who gets to use which land? Would the government also determine what they get to use it for? What about the length of time they're allowed to use it?

Also, could you clarify what you mean by "the community"; would land users have to pay everyone living nearby "their" land?
#14468582
MaxHen wrote:How would the government determine who gets to use which land?

Same way a private landowner does: by accepting the high bid.
Would the government also determine what they get to use it for?

Only to ensure that the use didn't interfere with the optimal use of nearby land.
What about the length of time they're allowed to use it?

Terms of tenure would be decided much the same way they currently are in the private land tenancy market: depending on the intended use, proposed investments in improvements, etc. If long terms are required, a modest premium would be charged, and the payments indexed to local GDP, which land rents tend to track. However, unlike the private land market, there would be no perpetual transfers of use rights. IMO there is seldom a good reason for tenure terms of more than 50 years.
Also, could you clarify what you mean by "the community"; would land users have to pay everyone living nearby "their" land?

Not as individuals, no, of course not. It is government's job to secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all the members of the community. To do that, it must administer possession and use of land so as to combine maximal respect for individual rights with justice to all community members. So those who wanted exclusive use of land would make just (market) compensation to the community by paying the market rent to the community land administration office, which would then remit the revenue to government to fund the public services and infrastructure the community democratically decided it wanted. Every resident citizen would in turn get equal compensation for the loss of their liberty to use that land in the form of a uniform, universal location fee exemption for enough of the available good locations of their choice to make a living. I.e., everyone would have free, secure tenure on a place to live that would give them access to the services and infrastructure needed to take advantage of the economic opportunities of their choice, and would pay for any amount of the good land they wanted to exclude others from in excess of that universal minimum.
#14472585
Eran wrote:I agree. Far too many libertarians (present company excluded) share with many mainstream statists not to mention socialists the illusion that the current system, at least in the US, is more akin to free market capitalism than it is to socialist economic fascism.

I am a strong proponent of [url]Bleeding Heart Libertarians[/url] who take the opposite view.

In fact, we have little idea just how much better a truly free market system will actually be, first and foremost for poor people.


Is that even possible? If we were able to create a truly free market, we would be able to create a truly Communist society as well.

blacktrance wrote:Disclaimer: I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, or even a strict minarchist. Nor am I a proponent of Austrian economics. More "hardcore" libertarians have called me a statist and a reformist. I don't even believe in the NAP (though it's a good rule of thumb). Nevertheless, I am still in the libertarian "Big Tent". Therefore, what I say isn't necessarily what other libertarians believe.

---

Libertarianism isn't about markets.
No, that's a misleading way to put it. Libertarianism isn't fundamentally about markets. Libertarianism is fundamentally about private property rights and freedom of association. This often means that people should be free to voluntarily exchange their property, whether it's in the form of physical objects (cars, houses, animals, etc) or not (e.g. labor). If enough people are exchanging, there is a market. So, as markets arise from people fulfilling their wants by trading value for value, libertarianism is pro-market. However, that's only one part of it. Libertarianism is also anti-war and anti-imperialist, because aggressive war is a violation of individual liberty both on the side of the aggressor (taxation) and the defender (killing people when it's not self-defense). Libertarianism is also in favor of allowing people to organize into non-market voluntary associations, such as mutual aid societies, labor unions, volunteer organizations, book clubs, marriages, etc.
So, the ultimate goal of my libertarianism is a society in which individuals associate with each other freely, without forced solidarity. People would be free to cooperate and find ways to most efficiently satisfy each other's desires. I think that abolishing government altogether would be undesirable, but it should be much smaller than it is currently, and should be regarded as just another service provider, much like a plumber or an electrician, and receive no special deference.


Nailed it perfectly. Although some US libertarians are more traditional Republicans rather than reformists.

I would like add that libertarians also believe that the role of government is to secure individual liberties and basic rights. Hence why I don't put ancaps in the same tent, even though some beliefs overlap.
#14472675
Eran wrote:In fact, we have little idea just how much better a truly free market system will actually be, first and foremost for poor people.

DrSteveBrule wrote:Is that even possible?

It is, but not Eran's way, because private property in land constitutes a subsidy to landowners at the expense of producers, consumers and taxpayers, and can therefore never be part of a true free market.
If we were able to create a truly free market, we would be able to create a truly Communist society as well.

No, because markets are where owners of property deal with each other, and communism abolishes private property.
Libertarianism isn't fundamentally about markets. Libertarianism is fundamentally about private property rights and freedom of association.

More accurately, feudal "libertarianism" like Eran's (and almost all other soi-disant "libertarians" on this forum and elsewhere) is fundamentally about forcibly removing people's rights to liberty and making those rights into the private property of landowners. I.e., it is about sacrificing the individual right to liberty on the altar of the Great God Property.
I would like add that libertarians also believe that the role of government is to secure individual liberties and basic rights.

Not so, as explained above. The feudal "libertarians" you are talking about actually believe that the proper role of government is to remove individual liberties and basic rights, and make them the private property of landowners. You can see the results in places like Saudi Arabia, where the Saud family owns all the land, and is, according to feudal "libertarians," thus entitled to remove all individual liberty rights on their "property," and take all the wealth produced there. And does so.
Hence why I don't put ancaps in the same tent, even though some beliefs overlap.

Ancaps want a feudal arrangement (feudalism is the default system that emerges wherever government disappears in a society beyond the nomadic herding stage) that effectively makes producers the slaves of landowners.
#14472752
Truth To Power wrote:No, because markets are where owners of property deal with each other, and communism abolishes private property.

Ancaps want a feudal arrangement (feudalism is the default system that emerges wherever government disappears in a society beyond the nomadic herding stage) that effectively makes producers the slaves of landowners.


They might seem mutually exclusive, but a libertarian society shares the same framework as a communist society. Both ideologies make an assumption that society can be crafted so that individuals have no need to exploit each other. Under a supposed communist state, all citizens would have an ample supply of food and materials to sustain each other, and some system of distribution ensures that the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is followed in an efficient manner. Under a purist libertarian country, all citizens would work to their fullest potential, allowing great achievers to flourish, and these achievers were supposed to be generous and fair in the power that they accumulate due to "rational self interest". Obviously, in both societies, the individuals who have the ability of acquiring property or the means to produce would not use this ability to oppress others, but would instead :

(Communism) share the means of production
(Libertarianism) allow competition/innovation or sacrifice short term profits if it benefits society in the long run.

Ancap is basically the desire to live in a cyberpunk world. Replace landlord/property owner with company. And imagine that we're in the future. It befuddles me how they think that basic rights can be secured without some collective effort.
#14472808
Truth To Power wrote:No, because markets are where owners of property deal with each other, and communism abolishes private property.

Ancaps want a feudal arrangement (feudalism is the default system that emerges wherever government disappears in a society beyond the nomadic herding stage) that effectively makes producers the slaves of landowners.

DrSteveBrule wrote:They might seem mutually exclusive, but a libertarian society shares the same framework as a communist society. Both ideologies make an assumption that society can be crafted so that individuals have no need to exploit each other.

But both set up conditions that guarantee they will.
Under a supposed communist state, all citizens would have an ample supply of food and materials to sustain each other, and some system of distribution ensures that the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is followed in an efficient manner.

Nope. Can't be done. Communists forget that ability does not produce anything. Exercise of ability does, but exercise of ability depends on motivation, and communism removes the accurate motivation of getting to keep the fruits of exercising your ability.
Under a purist libertarian country, all citizens would work to their fullest potential, allowing great achievers to flourish, and these achievers were supposed to be generous and fair in the power that they accumulate due to "rational self interest".

You refuse to distinguish between the landowner's power to take and the producer's power to give.
Obviously, in both societies, the individuals who have the ability of acquiring property or the means to produce would not use this ability to oppress others,

See? You refuse to know the difference between "acquiring" property in land by forcibly appropriating it, and acquiring property in the fruits of one's labor by creating it. The former inherently takes from others. The latter does not.
but would instead :

(Communism) share the means of production

Guaranteeing it is neither used efficiently nor augmented.
(Libertarianism) allow competition/innovation or sacrifice short term profits if it benefits society in the long run.

Libertarianism isn't about benefitting society.
Ancap is basically the desire to live in a cyberpunk world. Replace landlord/property owner with company.

See? You refuse to know the difference between taking land and supplying capital.
#14473088
Truth To Power wrote:
You refuse to distinguish between the landowner's power to take and the producer's power to give.

See? You refuse to know the difference between "acquiring" property in land by forcibly appropriating it, and acquiring property in the fruits of one's labor by creating it. The former inherently takes from others. The latter does not.

Libertarianism isn't about benefitting society.

See? You refuse to know the difference between taking land and supplying capital.


In almost every single society, the ability of the landowner to take is far greater than the producer's power to give. After all, the producer's power is inherently bound to the resources of the landowner in the first place.

Communism does not necessarily take from others if it's true intentions are followed. The workers would instead create property collectively.

Libertarianism doesn't aim to benefit society in a collective manner, but it is meant to benefit society from an individual standpoint. The lack of regulation and free markets is supposed to
1) Allow innovation
2) Grant personal liberties
3) Let each person work to their greatest potential
#14473178
Truth To Power wrote:You refuse to distinguish between the landowner's power to take and the producer's power to give.

See? You refuse to know the difference between "acquiring" property in land by forcibly appropriating it, and acquiring property in the fruits of one's labor by creating it. The former inherently takes from others. The latter does not.

Libertarianism isn't about benefitting society.

See? You refuse to know the difference between taking land and supplying capital.

DrSteveBrule wrote:In almost every single society, the ability of the landowner to take is far greater than the producer's power to give.

The landowner cannot sustainably take more from the producer than the producer can produce.
After all, the producer's power is inherently bound to the resources of the landowner in the first place.

Except under feudalism, the producer has choices about which land to use. Indeed, it is the competition between producers for the advantages of the better sites that gives rise to land rent.
Communism does not necessarily take from others if it's true intentions are followed.

It's unavoidable. You can't abolish private property without taking it from its producers.
The workers would instead create property collectively.

The act of production is fundamentally an individual act. Where more than one individual is involved, as in the production of large or complex products, the planning, initiation, coordination, etc. are still ultimately done by an individual, who is responsible for the result.
Libertarianism doesn't aim to benefit society in a collective manner, but it is meant to benefit society from an individual standpoint. The lack of regulation and free markets is supposed to
1) Allow innovation

Many soi-disant libertarians support intellectual property monopolies, which impede innovation.
2) Grant personal liberties

Liberty can't be granted. It is something people have automatically, unless someone else takes it away.
3) Let each person work to their greatest potential

If they can meet landowners' extortion demands.
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