Why Libertarians Should Be Socialists

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Berzerker
yavoon -

Glad we cleared that part of your fantasy up.



But this insane advantage does you no good if people can't afford to buy your land. That's why Henry Ford, who was smart, paid his employees enough to buy the cars he produced. But according to you, that would be dumb because 'ol Henry should have built ~100 cars and kept them himself to charge exorbitant amounts for taxi rides. Btw, millions of people own land so this little conspiracy of yours certainly qualifies as fantasy. I'm a landowner and I'm not in on your conspiracy, and while you and your friends are all the way to the...oh...wait...that's right...I'm the one going to the bank with the money I just acquired from selling my land because y'all thought you could hold out and get that huge profit... Now you're screwed...

the only reason millions of ppl own land is cuz we do not live in this system u envision. cuz u can sell land and be safe to buy it back up again. there is a liquidity involved. in ur system it would become apparent to any intelligent person that not owning land is committing financial suicide.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Yeah, but the point here is the government can BETTER afford to rent my land. I'll make less money than the amount you want to charge, but I'll make a LOT MORE money than you are ACTUALLY making.

it would be against ur self interest to not be in cahoots w/ me.

since we could each have our own police station and each make as much money as I originally would have made. so ur really only undercutting urself.

[Berzerker]

yavoon -

in today's system there is security for ppl who don't own land. there are literally thousands of laws of what landowners can and can't do. in ur system, everything is up for negotiation. there is literally no security if u don't own land.

In a libertarian system your rights are secured by law, including the right to negotiate the purchase of land. Your hypothetical is based on the fantasy that everyone who owns land won't sell unless they get millions (or whatever). Do any of these laws we have now require landowners to sell me land at the market value? No. So why don't we see all these landowners employing your tactic now? Because some (actually damn near all) landowners will see the wisdom of ignoring your appeals for this conspiracy and sell at market values. We're in the process of selling off a house now and we aren't holding our for 100x the market value of the house. Why? Because the house won't sell.

in that system only an enormous moron would ever sell land. and only a person not acting in his self interest WOULDN'T enter the plan w/ me.

Why is it in my self-interest to hold onto land I don't need but could sell off? You keep dodging this reality...

altruistic ppl are an anomoly and will not dominate the dynamics of ur system.

Really? So when people donate to charity, that's an anomaly?

unless u want to be communist and assume everyone is altruist, ur really out to lunch. a nd who's to say I can't do my thing anyway but become a philanthropist. I can ownthe cow and pass out some milk, not a bad idea.

I don't need to be a communist to know that there are plenty of people who take altruistic actions out of self-interest. I feel good when I donate to charity. I feel good when I stop for a stranded motorist. I feel good when I treat people as I want to be treated. These are actions taken out of self-interest that have altruistic results...

[David Floyd]

the police were completely w/in their rights to not use their labor to investigate.

If the police see, or otherwise know, that you shot someone, then they'll come arrest you, and make you pay for it. IF the police don't know who committed the murder, and IF no one tells them, and IF that person didn't pay user fees (which, by the way, is unlikely), then no, the police don't have to investigate.

But wait a second. If you are funding the police out of your own pocket, voluntarily, then they are already getting paid, which is what they are concerned with, so they are going to do their job, which is to investigate crime.

Aha, you think: If someone refuses to pay user fees, this drives up costs for everyone else, but the police are still getting paid, and still have to investigate. However, you are missing one major difference - the issue that the people who want to pay user fees are being forced to pay more than they would ordinarily have to by the person who doesn't want to pay, while if someone VOLUNTEERS to pay, no one is being forced to pay more than they ordinarily would.

This system is designed to encourage people to pay into the police, not as a mechanism for you to gain power. If you find a way to abuse the system through corruption - and I still don't really see how your way does that - that doesn't indict the system, it indicts YOU.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Berzerker
yavoon -

In a libertarian system your rights are secured by law, including the right to negotiate the purchase of land. Your hypothetical is based on the fantasy that everyone who owns land won't sell unless they get millions (or whatever). Do any of these laws we have now require landowners to sell me land at the market value? No. So why don't we see all these landowners employing your tactic now? Because some (actually damn near all) landowners will see the wisdom of ignoring your appeals for this conspiracy and sell at market values. We're in the process of selling off a house now and we aren't holding our for 100x the market value of the house. Why? Because the house won't sell.



Why is it in my self-interest to hold onto land I don't need but could sell off? You keep dodging this reality...



Really? So when people donate to charity, that's an anomaly?



I don't need to be a communist to know that there are plenty of people who take altruistic actions out of self-interest. I feel good when I donate to charity. I feel good when I stop for a stranded motorist. I feel good when I treat people as I want to be treated. These are actions taken out of self-interest that have altruistic results...

is it or is it not in one's self interest to carry out the plan I proposed? I say it is. I say that holding onto the land is in one's self interest under ur system.

so all u have is that "ppl don't act in their self interest." pretty laffable ground to argue from.

again the reason ppl buy and sell land all the time is cuz its safe. and the possible exploitation isnt nearly as high. the possible profit from my scheme is enormous. but it needs the massively deregulated libertarian society.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


If the police see, or otherwise know, that you shot someone, then they'll come arrest you, and make you pay for it. IF the police don't know who committed the murder, and IF no one tells them, and IF that person didn't pay user fees (which, by the way, is unlikely), then no, the police don't have to investigate.

But wait a second. If you are funding the police out of your own pocket, voluntarily, then they are already getting paid, which is what they are concerned with, so they are going to do their job, which is to investigate crime.

Aha, you think: If someone refuses to pay user fees, this drives up costs for everyone else, but the police are still getting paid, and still have to investigate. However, you are missing one major difference - the issue that the people who want to pay user fees are being forced to pay more than they would ordinarily have to by the person who doesn't want to pay, while if someone VOLUNTEERS to pay, no one is being forced to pay more than they ordinarily would.

This system is designed to encourage people to pay into the police, not as a mechanism for you to gain power. If you find a way to abuse the system through corruption - and I still don't really see how your way does that - that doesn't indict the system, it indicts YOU.

the stipulation of my rent contract for the police station predetermines required user fees.

and its not murder if they wanted me to shoot them. which then the police would have to ascertain that they didn't.

[David Floyd]

it would be against ur self interest to not be in cahoots w/ me.

since we could each have our own police station and each make as much money as I originally would have made. so ur really only undercutting urself.

Why would the government put a police station on every single plot of land? That sounds more like a Republicrat pork project than a Libertarian system.

[Bosh]

Sure you had more economic and social non-intervention then, but you also did have government charters for bridges (ie, giving monopolies over a waterway to one company or another) and so on

And some fun things like Established Churches in some states.

Yes, Boshko... most extreme Libertarians probably already consider me a socialist anyway... you aren't helping

Sorry

Expect a lot of LOOOONG che posts

Well as long as we can avoid another flame war over Lenin we should do OK.

It relys on simple greed and self-interest, which hardly sounds utopian to most people.

I disagree with you here. "I don't want to tax people who're richer than me even though doing so would mean me getting better education and health care than I would otherwise" doesn't seem like a terribly good example of greed and self interest.

I've noticed that the people coming out of non-public schools seem to be skewed far heavier towards the libertarian viewpoint, which makes sense to me.

Probably more of a class thing, with private school kids being disproportionately rich.

But with a few minor changes (such as tort reform and subsidy elimination) our current system would be even better suited for it.

Better than it is now yes. Better than it was in the early US north? Hardly. Nothing's a better backbone for libertarianism than having a huge chunk of the population being self-employed craftsmen/farmers/merchants.

Some things just take time to build properly.

It'll take more than that. Just like it'll take more than that for any far-left party to have any success.

However, if the farmers switched over to the other crop, prices for the crop they switched to would drop to unsustainable wages because of supply and demand and it would harm the island's economy. One year banana blight strikes all of the banana farmers, killing their crop.

A partial solution to this sort of thing is the sorts of institutions that exist in the Mondragon Co-operatives in northern Spain. Basically there's a good-sized bank affiliated with the co-operatives that could tide the banana farmers over with short-term credit. Or loan the bankrupt banana farmers enough money to start planting mangoes or somethng. Also in the co-operative federations all the co-ops pools some of their profits so that if any group has a single tough year they'll get a hand to make sure they don't go under (but not enough money to keep a money-losing business from going under indefinately). You don't need government intervention, you just need the right voluntary institutions.

Also as mentioned earlier, corporations, religious organization, etc. can wield a great deal of collectivist power even in the absense of government that limits individuals.

Right a libertarian society needs voluntary organizations with a lot of power in order to work properly (especially various co-op organizations).

If other people can't be bothered to understand Libertarianism before going off on it, then I can't be bothered to take them seriously.

DF is the best example of what I was talking about in the beginning of the post. Lots of talk about the morality of libertarianism and never anything about how it could be implemented in a feasible manner.

I personally dislike tresspassing laws. As long as you don't harm somebody's land it, or the people on it then tresspassing seems like trumphed up charges to me.

A better example is pollution and how to regulate it in an absolutely libertarian society (ie David Floyd Land, I think berzerker and Wraith are at least a bit more moderate).

its obvious david floyd is not interested in what will happen. only what should.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

In that it may be more acceptible to the majority, not to morality.

Who cares what morality wants, its an abstraction. If it doesn't make life better in a concrete way, what's the point?

That's the old "the state will wither away once wealth is fairly distributed" argument.

Right.

Once government and it's bureaucracies have a power, they'll use it to create more power.

Not if it isn't the government that's doing the redistributing. The ONLY way to get to either real libertarianism or real socialism is non-coercive wealth redistribute (through co-operatives, syndicalist unions or whatever, or simple unplanned socio-economic change (the internet in at lease some cases)) since if you have government do the wealth-redistributing you get tyranny and if there's no wealth redistributing its very hard to institute libertarianism since a welfare state is in the economic interests of the majority if there's enough inequality.

Taxing the "rich"

When did I ever say government should have anything to do with making society more egalitarian? Of all people, libertarians should have enough imagination to realize that there's more ways to get things done then to call in government intervention. Also if all that's keeping things equal if taxation then as soon as the tax goes away the things go back to being unequal so that can hardly make the state wither away, that you need is fundamental economic restructuring.

Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime... The socialist would give us fish, the libertarian would teach us to fish...

Doesn't matter if he can fish if he doesn't own the pond, that's the only real solution.

but they shouldn't expect the police or courts to do anything about it if someone robs them

So you only get the rights that you can afford? And if police are just pretty glorified protection companies then where do they get the authority to violate the freedom of suspects by arresting them from?

I don't see how it could keep them from passing tons of non-Libertarian laws. What would constitute a crime? I'm guessing a violation of individual rights, but how far do those rights extend? Would burning laws still be in place? I mean I'm confident that I can a fire under control even if I light it before 4pm. Would zoning regulations still matter? I bought this piece of property, so I should be able to do anything I want to it, correct?

Very good points. I'm only a quasi-libertarian (being a socialist complicates things a bit ) and my opinion is that a certain amount of state is inevitable until there's really fundamental socio-economic change (the whole withering away of the state idea).

Sure, because our system encourages that type of behavior. A Libertarian system would not.

human nature is human nature.

The judicial system and law enforcement branch are responsible for enforcing the Constitution, and for preventing people from violating the rights of others, which is also Constitutionally prohibited. If the Constitution is written tightly enough, a Legislature is largely superfluous.

What would keep a Libertarian Constitution from being a dead letter? You need more than moral richeousness (sp?) to make a system work.

[David Floyd]

the stipulation of my rent contract for the police station predetermines required user fees.

Then the police will rent land from someone who is more reasonable - namely, me. I have used my simple calculation I posted above (10% of $1000 vs. 100% of $500) to determine that it's in my interest to get the police to rent from me.

and its not murder if they wanted me to shoot them. which then the police would have to ascertain that they didn't.

That's really just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You can't just go around killing people and then try to force the police to prove they didn't want you to. In fact, that would be UNPROVABLE by definition - the person you shot was DEAD. The burden of proof is on YOU to prove that they wanted your help in committing suicide - and if you're smart, you'll secure that permission by getting a notarized, pre-death statement from the person you just shot.

[korn469]

yavoon,

if you are the other elite landowners didn't pay the police anything, and used private security guards to protect yourself you'd be better off. Just make sure that the peons can't afford to hire a police force, and you're good to go. *evil grin*

i hate that smilies aren't working

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Then the police will rent land from someone who is more reasonable - namely, me. I have used my simple calculation I posted above (10% of $1000 vs. 100% of $500) to determine that it's in my interest to get the police to rent from me.



That's really just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You can't just go around killing people and then try to force the police to prove they didn't want you to. In fact, that would be UNPROVABLE by definition - the person you shot was DEAD. The burden of proof is on YOU to prove that they wanted your help in committing suicide - and if you're smart, you'll secure that permission by getting a notarized, pre-death statement from the person you just shot.

its improvable if its beyond a shadow of a doubt. beyond reasonable is easily provable. just ask around investigate, do police work. but alas, he didnt pay user fees. so there's no reason to use labor on him.

and whats REALLY in ur best interest is to enter into agreement w/ me to have 2 police stations. one for each of us. and carry out my scheme. like I said, if we assume best interest, THIS IS the best interest. so stop feeding me thsi tripe w/o disproving that simple statement.

[David Floyd]

Boshko,

So you only get the rights that you can afford? And if police are just pretty glorified protection companies then where do they get the authority to violate the freedom of suspects by arresting them from?

The answers to these questions are in the thread. I'm not going over this ground again.

human nature is human nature.

Some systems make corruption easy, and some make it difficult.

What would keep a Libertarian Constitution from being a dead letter? You need more than moral richeousness (sp?) to make a system work

Sure, you need a judicial system and a police force to stop people from acting immorally. And obviously you need some measure of popular support - if no one wants to behave morally, it's pretty tough to make them.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Why would the government put a police station on every single plot of land? That sounds more like a Republicrat pork project than a Libertarian system.

nitpick.

eitherway the system works. as long as we all act in our best interest and are all aware of the power of my scheme.

so the police station has 50 users. it makes no material difference. so long as there is a sufficiently large base below us that do not own land.

infact u making me make this post to say that is an insult.

[Berzerker]

yavoon -

everyone can afford to live on my land.

Then what's the problem? You're changing your hypothetical, you said people could not afford to live on your land because you discovered a way to screw people by over-charging... Would you settle on one hypothetical so we don't around for 500 posts?

no1 can afford to buy it.

Then they can seek land you don't own.

and henry did something brilliant for the economy in a highly regulated(compared to this) system. I am doing my own self interest. not others, in an extremely deregulated system.

But Henry did that out of self-interest too. You say what he did was brilliant but a while ago you were describing his behavior as stupid. And there was no regulation requiring him to sell cars or pay his employees enough to buy his product, he did that because he knew how markets and mass production work.

the only reason millions of ppl own land is cuz we do not live in this system u envision.

What are you talking about? The current system of land ownership is a result of private property which is libertarianism at work. Systems where only a handfull of people own all the land are called feudalism or monarchies.

cuz u can sell land and be safe to buy it back up again. there is a liquidity involved. in ur system it would become apparent to any intelligent person that not owning land is committing financial suicide.

Why? People have rented land throughout US history with the goal of saving enough to buy land. You've gone from dodging to making stuff up.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Boshko,



The answers to these questions are in the thread. I'm not going over this ground again.



Some systems make corruption easy, and some make it difficult.



Sure, you need a judicial system and a police force to stop people from acting immorally. And obviously you need some measure of popular support - if no one wants to behave morally, it's pretty tough to make them.

public support sounds a lot like democracy. we hate democracy. we live under the rule of freedoms by user fees. of which I have violated none.