Quote: Original post by LessBread
I'm not calling for the abolition of private property and the dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm not calling for a worker's revolution. That you made that comparison reflects your ignorance. I'm calling for increasing taxes on the people who benefited the most from policies that ran up the national debt in order to pay off that national debt.

Why wouldn't you be calling for an end of government cartelization that makes the graft possible instead of calling for more cartelization?

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Don't let your ignorance of the justification for socialism get in the way of your straw-man arguments. Central planning in the United States? Don't make me laugh! It took government to build the railroads, build the dams, build the highways, build the internet, put a man on the moon, put an end to polio and small pox and more.

The government has built nothing but monuments to itself and an army to defend its monopoly. Your list is a series of cartels, military programs, and outright propoganda.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
I'm not calling for the abolition of private property and the dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm not calling for a worker's revolution. That you made that comparison reflects your ignorance. I'm calling for increasing taxes on the people who benefited the most from policies that ran up the national debt in order to pay off that national debt.

Why wouldn't you be calling for an end of government cartelization that makes the graft possible instead of calling for more cartelization?

Graft exists independently of government. In fact, I would say that you'll find more graft in places with little or no government, or weak government that is easily turned by powerful business interests.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Don't let your ignorance of the justification for socialism get in the way of your straw-man arguments. Central planning in the United States? Don't make me laugh! It took government to build the railroads, build the dams, build the highways, build the internet, put a man on the moon, put an end to polio and small pox and more.

The government has built nothing but monuments to itself and an army to defend its monopoly. Your list is a series of cartels, military programs, and outright propoganda.

You've misspelled propaganda. You've also missed my point, which isn't surprising given your inability to see anything positive in government. As I've said before in other threads, you don't like Jefferson, you don't like Lincoln and you don't like FDR. Face it, you just don't like America.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Graft exists independently of government. In fact, I would say that you'll find more graft in places with little or no government, or weak government that is easily turned by powerful business interests.

So that's your reason to support government based graft?

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You've misspelled propaganda. You've also missed my point, which isn't surprising given your inability to see anything positive in government. As I've said before in other threads, you don't like Jefferson, you don't like Lincoln and you don't like FDR. Face it, you just don't like America.

I do like Jefferson actually, I just don't deify him, and America isn't a string of presidents you choose or a government you worship. I also do see something positive in government. National defense seems like a proper public good as well as a justice system, although I'm working hard to reason these out of the equation I just can't seem to get over the hump with these two issues.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
That's a spurious distinction, especially considering that the reason cited for obliging the bankers was the threat of lawsuits. Why don't you just admit that you're in the bag for bankers and corporations? I'll have to remember your remarks here the next time you trot out the claim that Libertarians are not anti-union. More to the specifics of your point, however, the base of all contracts is litigious, not moral or ethical. To suggest otherwise is an obscene joke. Don't pretend for a minute that a corporation wouldn't hesitate to sue over a contract violation, whether that contract was with a union or another corporation.

A couple more issues here;

I do support labor unions absolutely. I support everyone's right to freely associate. What I don't support are coercive laws that empower X union to cartelize the labor good, and thus by extension making any contract they extort from an employer government backed graft.

That doesn't preclude the right of people to form a union and collectively bargain for salaries, benefits, or quality of life issues.

You also miss the point about contracts. If two people enter into a contract willingly, there is a moral distinction between that and a contract entered into by threat of violence.

If I come to your house and "buy" your car for a dollar by waving a gun in your face and cutting your phone lines that contract is immoral.

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Corporations rely on government favors and monopoly grants all the time. What do you think patents, trademarks and copyright laws are about?

I agree, that's why I'm not "in the bag for bankers and corporations". You on the other hand pretend not to be but then advocate the very types of actions that allow them to exploit their government influence. I don't owe it to malice.

On the issue of patents, trademarks, and monopoly grants. Obviously I'm not in favor of cartelization, you claim not to be. Patents and trademarks, I'm not entirely certain that we need them at all, included intellectual property. I'm still working this out to be honest.

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Oh please! Stop inventing history. You complain about inflating bubbles by praising the ultimate in bubble creation!

I assume you're not referring to the real estate bubble of 1919? Harding wasn't an economic genius by any stretch, he was a hardcore protectionist and had plenty of cronyism during his term. But since you've expressed some exasperation, what in your mind created the bubble blamed for the great depression?

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It's articles like this one that led me to stop reading Lew Rockwell. Not because I disagreed with the ideology (I read it before in spite of that), but because I found too many article there passed on bogus facts. Compare the assertions there with the figures from here and my percentage change calculations. There was no 24% plunge between 1920 and 1921. In real terms the contraction was 2%! That's compared with the 27% contraction from 1929 to 1933 - and 45% in nominal terms which is what your source appears to have used. Seriously, you've been duped.

gNp you've quoted gDp. Honestly man, maybe you should go back to reading Rockwell and this time just pay a bit more attention.

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That was some bubble!

Aye, it was very short lived, I'll be interested in hearing your take on how the roaring 20s created a bubble that caused the great depression.

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The other day Newt Gingrich said that the GOP would split in two if they couldn't figure out how to stop being the "right wing party of big government" (Gingrich warns of third party in 2012). Good luck with that!

Newt may be right, there's a power struggle going on between neocons, which are warmongers that support authoritarian rule socially and economically, and classic conservatives, which are warmongers that support liberal economic policies and authoritarian social policies.

I'm not sure why you'd wish me luck, I should be wishing you luck. If the republicans implode the democrats will follow soon after. You don't truly appreciate how much they are the same party. Take away the illusion of choice and they may actually be called to task for governing.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Graft exists independently of government. In fact, I would say that you'll find more graft in places with little or no government, or weak government that is easily turned by powerful business interests.

So that's your reason to support government based graft?

So that's your reason for beating your wife?

How about avoiding the loaded questions?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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You've misspelled propaganda. You've also missed my point, which isn't surprising given your inability to see anything positive in government. As I've said before in other threads, you don't like Jefferson, you don't like Lincoln and you don't like FDR. Face it, you just don't like America.

I do like Jefferson actually, I just don't deify him, and America isn't a string of presidents you choose or a government you worship. I also do see something positive in government. National defense seems like a proper public good as well as a justice system, although I'm working hard to reason these out of the equation I just can't seem to get over the hump with these two issues.

Jefferson held that government is the institution that secures natural rights. You seem to believe that government is only capable of evil. How can you square your fondness for Jefferson with that? The Presidents I listed made America what it is, so if you don't like them because of what they accomplished, then you don't like America, because what they accomplished was the making of America. Now you say that you see a role for government in providing national defense and a justice system, but those are the very functions that pose the greatest threats to liberty, indeed, potentially violent threats to liberty. I find it very odd that an anti-statist would identify those two functions as acceptable.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
That's a spurious distinction, especially considering that the reason cited for obliging the bankers was the threat of lawsuits. Why don't you just admit that you're in the bag for bankers and corporations? I'll have to remember your remarks here the next time you trot out the claim that Libertarians are not anti-union. More to the specifics of your point, however, the base of all contracts is litigious, not moral or ethical. To suggest otherwise is an obscene joke. Don't pretend for a minute that a corporation wouldn't hesitate to sue over a contract violation, whether that contract was with a union or another corporation.

A couple more issues here;

I do support labor unions absolutely. I support everyone's right to freely associate. What I don't support are coercive laws that empower X union to cartelize the labor good, and thus by extension making any contract they extort from an employer government backed graft.

That doesn't preclude the right of people to form a union and collectively bargain for salaries, benefits, or quality of life issues.

You also miss the point about contracts. If two people enter into a contract willingly, there is a moral distinction between that and a contract entered into by threat of violence.

If I come to your house and "buy" your car for a dollar by waving a gun in your face and cutting your phone lines that contract is immoral.

Let's be clear. You don't support labor unions absolutely, you support them conditionally and provisionally on the basis of your belief that labor is a commodity and that government enforcement of labor contracts amounts to graft. I suppose you don't have any problem with government voiding labor contracts and breaking up unions. In fact, I bet you applaud when government does that. I didn't miss the point you were trying to make about contracts, I just don't think it holds. A contract is a legal agreement not a moral agreement. The example that you present of a contract entered under threat of violence is spurious. Such contracts are illegal from the outset. Casting contracts in a moral light seems to me to be nothing more that a simple rhetorical effort to lend contracts some sense of the sacred, to give them a kind of religious imprimatur.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Corporations rely on government favors and monopoly grants all the time. What do you think patents, trademarks and copyright laws are about?

I agree, that's why I'm not "in the bag for bankers and corporations". You on the other hand pretend not to be but then advocate the very types of actions that allow them to exploit their government influence. I don't owe it to malice.

On the issue of patents, trademarks, and monopoly grants. Obviously I'm not in favor of cartelization, you claim not to be. Patents and trademarks, I'm not entirely certain that we need them at all, included intellectual property. I'm still working this out to be honest.

What indicated that you're in the bag for bankers was your rush to defend contracts with bankers as consensual in contrast with the supposedly coerced contracts with unions. I, on the other hand, said nothing about my thoughts on the matter of patents etc. You're reading my criticism of your position as if it was a statement about what I think about patents etc. rather than what it actually was. For what it's worth, I'm not opposed to them in principle, but I think they've become far too restrictive. They've literally become Mickey Mouse laws.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Oh please! Stop inventing history. You complain about inflating bubbles by praising the ultimate in bubble creation!

I assume you're not referring to the real estate bubble of 1919? Harding wasn't an economic genius by any stretch, he was a hardcore protectionist and had plenty of cronyism during his term. But since you've expressed some exasperation, what in your mind created the bubble blamed for the great depression?

I was talking about the absurd assertion that the recession of 1921 was as severe as the Great Depression. That's total nonsense. Roughly sketched, the bubble that lead to the Great Depression came about from a loose monetary policy in which the Fed lent money to the "malefactors of great wealth" who used it to place too many spurious side bets at the casino, that is, in a stock market lacking necessary regulation. [grin]

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote:
It's articles like this one that led me to stop reading Lew Rockwell. Not because I disagreed with the ideology (I read it before in spite of that), but because I found too many article there passed on bogus facts. Compare the assertions there with the figures from here and my percentage change calculations. There was no 24% plunge between 1920 and 1921. In real terms the contraction was 2%! That's compared with the 27% contraction from 1929 to 1933 - and 45% in nominal terms which is what your source appears to have used. Seriously, you've been duped.

gNp you've quoted gDp. Honestly man, maybe you should go back to reading Rockwell and this time just pay a bit more attention.

Nobody uses GNP anymore. The two are close enough to be synonymous and GDP is larger (compare GNP U.S. 1947-2008 with GDP U.S. 1947-2008), so my criticism holds.

The more attention I paid to reading Rockwell, the more errors I found, so I stopped reading Rockwell. I still manage to read the many of the same columnists published there, typically via antiwar.org, but they tend to focus more on war and peace rather than economics. I used to appreciate Rozeff's columns regarding economics, even if I didn't agree with him.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote:
The other day Newt Gingrich said that the GOP would split in two if they couldn't figure out how to stop being the "right wing party of big government" (Gingrich warns of third party in 2012). Good luck with that!

Newt may be right, there's a power struggle going on between neocons, which are warmongers that support authoritarian rule socially and economically, and classic conservatives, which are warmongers that support liberal economic policies and authoritarian social policies.

I'm not sure why you'd wish me luck, I should be wishing you luck. If the republicans implode the democrats will follow soon after. You don't truly appreciate how much they are the same party. Take away the illusion of choice and they may actually be called to task for governing.

I wasn't wishing you luck, or Gingrich either for that matter, but the remark was directed towards him. I disagree with your prognostication, not because I don't see that corporations are calling all the shots behind the scenes with both parties (I've probably been aware of that for a far longer time than you have), but because the lessons of the Reform Party and the Green Party and now the Libertarian Party (per that other thread viz Barr and Paul) demonstrate how the two parties insinuate themselves into third parties in order to negate their potential to become viable rivals for power. The Republicans are imploding because their messages aren't resonating with the public the way they used to. The mantra that tax cuts solve everything has grown stale. I don't see a Democratic collapse following a Republican collapse, because right now their message is resonating with the public. That could change and quickly too, especially as President Obama continues to push economic policies minted by Goldman Sachs.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
So that's your reason for beating your wife?

How about avoiding the loaded questions?

Why not debunk the question? "Big Business" uses government to create impediments for entry into the free market, and exploit these regulations to create cartels and monopolies. As a supporter of said regulations why not just square your position? We both apparently agree that government has a hand played in the creation of cartels, and that business often pulls the strings of policy to generate graft, why do you continue to support this creation?

Your earlier point about graft existing without government is fine but shouldn't government first be uninvolved in said graft and only then protect the citizen from the graft?

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Jefferson held that government is the institution that secures natural rights. You seem to believe that government is only capable of evil. How can you square your fondness for Jefferson with that?

As I've stated before, my understanding of "a MOST perfect union" is incomplete and still needs continuous development. Below are some of the quotes penned by Jefferson that makes me fond of him.

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A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

...

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

...

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

...

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

...

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

...

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

...

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

...

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Any number of those quotes would spawn a lengthy debate with you on this forum. I take Jefferson's view that a good government is exceptionally limited in its role. It may be that even while so limited it is simply a matter of time before it grows to be a tyranny. He was obviously concerned with this issue.

Who's to say if he had modern technology and an understanding of the last 200 hundred years he wouldn't revise his views in some ways? I think it is foolhardy to assume he wouldn't.

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The Presidents I listed made America what it is, so if you don't like them because of what they accomplished, then you don't like America, because what they accomplished was the making of America.

In your very narrow and "made for this thread" definition of it I imagine you're correct. Maybe I like Spooner, Rothbard, and Jefferson for what this country could be and the impacts they've had. Maybe I like the people and the general will of independence that was once more popular. Maybe I like this country in spite of a president that sent his political detractors to jail and deported them and suspended your right to a fair trial, or squashed the freedom of the press. Maybe I like it in spite of a president that extended the great depression and set the stage for the downfall of the us government by hanging future generations with a ponzi scheme form of entitlement.

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Now you say that you see a role for government in providing national defense and a justice system, but those are the very functions that pose the greatest threats to liberty, indeed, potentially violent threats to liberty. I find it very odd that an anti-statist would identify those two functions as acceptable.

I agree completely. Those two issues are both extremely sensitive to corruption and easy entries into tyrannical rule. Your point about "violent" threats are moot because all incursions of liberty are a violation of the right to self ownership. Or stated more simply, you can't take away my liberty without violence or the credible threat of violence.

I'll give you the background basis of where I'm coming from.

All forms of monopolies are bad. All forms of monopolies tend to create additional monopolies. In its purest form a standing army and a justice system are the mechanical hands of a monopoly on force in a given geographical region.

This is the genesis of the "government is a necessary evil" mantra.
The belief that in order for society to function at or near peak that a monopoly on force must exist.

If you look to nature you see that you have both models represented.

Homogeneous social creatures tend towards a monopoly on force. Wolves have an alpha that maintains a monopoly on force, the same is true for many types of homogeneous groups.

The ecosystem, in all its permutations, has no monopoly on force. A eats B eats C is eaten by bacteria. Repeat ad infinitum.

Both models have "made the cut" through the years.

The anarchist view of the justice system I'm not far from being able to internalize.

Here is Rothbard on a treatment of the issue. I wish he were alive today so I could prompt the guy to extend his treatment and handle a few special cases. What if a victim has no heir and is killed in a crime? For instance, a homeless person whos identity is unknown. Would the murder of that person be legal in effect? So I can see some issues in his outline.

There are quite a few positives as well. If you've ever been involved in arbitration it tends to be more representative than public courts so long as both parties choose the arbitor and not the monied party only. Especially in the case of specialization. When you're dealing with a highly specialized case there's some real advantage for both parties if the arbitor understands the topic at hand.


On national defense, Here is an unsatisfactory treatment by Rothbard. I have more issues with this part. The concept and implications of private defense on a national level seem utopian. Whereby economics and even justice can work iteratively, national defense is zero sum in many cases.

That said, I'm still hitting it from different angles. I'm not prepared to discard it entirely.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Let's be clear. You don't support labor unions absolutely, you support them conditionally and provisionally on the basis of your belief that labor is a commodity and that government enforcement of labor contracts amounts to graft.

I don't believe government enforcement of labor contracts amount to graft, I believe that contracts intitated on threat of government force are immoral, and the resulting reward is graft. The distinction is relevant, and dismisses your point.

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I suppose you don't have any problem with government voiding labor contracts and breaking up unions. In fact, I bet you applaud when government does that. I didn't miss the point you were trying to make about contracts, I just don't think it holds.

Government breaking up unions is generally based on the fact that they delegated coercive power to the union. I'd be interested in a case where a government broke up a union without first delegating it coercive power if you have an example.

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A contract is a legal agreement not a moral agreement. The example that you present of a contract entered under threat of violence is spurious. Such contracts are illegal from the outset. Casting contracts in a moral light seems to me to be nothing more that a simple rhetorical effort to lend contracts some sense of the sacred, to give them a kind of religious imprimatur.

It would seem that way to you because you have a gaping wound in your logic. You exempt the state from the rules of civility as ubermensch. But contracts coerced by government are as immoral as contracts coerced by any other form of violence. When stated directly that you equate law with morality you deny it but in practice, as in this case, you substitue law for morality.

A contract is a legal agreement, but not de facto moral. Coerced legal agreements are immoral because coercion is immoral. All coerced contracts are not illegal. Conscription is an easy example.

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What indicated that you're in the bag for bankers was your rush to defend contracts with bankers as consensual in contrast with the supposedly coerced contracts with unions. I, on the other hand, said nothing about my thoughts on the matter of patents etc. You're reading my criticism of your position as if it was a statement about what I think about patents etc. rather than what it actually was. For what it's worth, I'm not opposed to them in principle, but I think they've become far too restrictive. They've literally become Mickey Mouse laws.

This is a really interesting topic I'm studying at the moment. Kinsella did a treatment on IP laws and then extended it to patents and copyright. If you;re interested I believe it's called Against Intellectual Property.

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I was talking about the absurd assertion that the recession of 1921 was as severe as the Great Depression. That's total nonsense. Roughly sketched, the bubble that lead to the Great Depression came about from a loose monetary policy in which the Fed lent money to the "malefactors of great wealth" who used it to place too many spurious side bets at the casino, that is, in a stock market lacking necessary regulation. [grin]

Hey, at leat can agree with about a third of your comment, we're making progress! [smile]

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Nobody uses GNP anymore. The two are close enough to be synonymous and GDP is larger (compare GNP U.S. 1947-2008 with GDP U.S. 1947-2008), so my criticism holds.

You made a qualatitive argument which was based on the wrong data.

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The more attention I paid to reading Rockwell, the more errors I found, so I stopped reading Rockwell. I still manage to read the many of the same columnists published there, typically via antiwar.org, but they tend to focus more on war and peace rather than economics. I used to appreciate Rozeff's columns regarding economics, even if I didn't agree with him.

Justin Raimondo is a champ isn't he?

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I wasn't wishing you luck, or Gingrich either for that matter, but the remark was directed towards him. I disagree with your prognostication, not because I don't see that corporations are calling all the shots behind the scenes with both parties (I've probably been aware of that for a far longer time than you have), but because the lessons of the Reform Party and the Green Party and now the Libertarian Party (per that other thread viz Barr and Paul) demonstrate how the two parties insinuate themselves into third parties in order to negate their potential to become viable rivals for power. The Republicans are imploding because their messages aren't resonating with the public the way they used to. The mantra that tax cuts solve everything has grown stale. I don't see a Democratic collapse following a Republican collapse, because right now their message is resonating with the public. That could change and quickly too, especially as President Obama continues to push economic policies minted by Goldman Sachs.

I'd argue that they're imploding because their actions don't match their rhetoric. If republicans actually lived up to their liberal economic rhetoric their rule would be typified by strong economies and they'd always have a place at the table. Instead they've taken the worst of the democratic party and the worst of the republican party and ran with that.

I see the same happening in the democratic party, with the neocons jumping ship from the republicans and insinuating themselves into the democratic party it won't be long before the same can be said of the democrats.

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight
So who are the elite who should pay more taxes for being at fault behind this crash? Those people making more than $250,000 a year? Tell that to a family of four living in Manhattan or San Francisco.

Hold on.

Are you honestly telling me that $250,000 a year will not buy a decent standard of living for 4 people (2 of whom are presumably children) in those two cities?

I live in Toronto by myself - probably second most expensive place to live in Canada, after Calgary - and I seriously can't imagine how I could possibly run out of money on $25,000 gross per year. (Of course, with our "socialism", the income tax on such an amount is actually quite low.) And I rent a clean, spacious apartment in a quiet neighbourhood fairly close to the downtown core. So I find that a little hard to believe.

But honestly, putting numbers aside: you'd think it's just common sense to seek the funding for social programs from those who actually have it, hmm? Of course, socialists would generally like to see significant increases in corporate tax rates (whether instead or in addition). To say nothing of some kind of policy that might make these taxes actually get paid.

Quote: The justification for socialism is a lie. It is not an egalitarian love of the poor that motivates the socialist. It is greed, jealousy, and hatred towards the upper class that motivates the socialist.

Speaking from my own experience as a self-described moderate socialist, that is simply not true; and I would strongly advise that you not attempt to ascribe emotions to other people without extraordinary evidence. (And do keep in mind that there is a difference between socialism and communism that is more than simply one of degree, mm'kay? Although I will admit that I'm not exactly demonstrating it here. :) )

Quote: It took governments to push fractional reserve banking, it took governments to destroy the stability of currency, it took governments to round up the people for the ovens, it took governments to create famines out of favorable agricultural seasons. And your answer is more government.

Sigh. No, the socialist answer is for the government to do different things from what it has been doing. (I have no idea how you intend to quantify "government", anyway, but socialism is very obviously not the same thing as "more" government of the sort that the US currently has, because the government that the US currently has does not promote socialist ideas.)

Nice stealth Godwinization, BTW.

Quote: Original post by Silvermyst

Quote: Original post by LessBread
The one third you wrote of pertained to the population, not your paycheck. Regarding your paycheck, you implied that half of it was on the line, not one third.

The wealth redistribution isn't limited to just what's on my paycheck. By the time everything's said and done, half of your money and half of my money will be handed over to a third party. Now, if that's the way it has to be, fine. But I just don't feel like either of us are getting our money's worth.

You seem to conveniently ignore how much is handed back to you. :/