Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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?

Debunk a loaded question? O.K. Let's see. Your question was presumptuous and loaded. I don't support government based graft. I don't agree that regulations create cartels and monopolies. I suspect that you're trying to associate your pet demons with the word "cartel" in order to take advantage of the recent flurry of news regarding the drug cartels in Mexico and hope that the negativity rubs off on your ideological targets. You're operating on the assumption that government is inherently corrupt and can never be otherwise, because regardless of the facts, your goal is to liberate corporations from the only institution capable of restraining them. You try to make an issue of the fact that sometimes government fails to restrain corporations, that sometimes, many times, corporations get the better of government and use it to further their nefarious ends, but rather than focus on the actual source of that corruption, you focus on the one institution capable of resisting.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
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?

Another loaded question. You're presuming that government is involved in graft from the start. Your question is akin to asking if a police department with a few bad cops should stop policing the streets while it goes about policing itself and getting rid of those bad cops. Government should protect citizens from graft even as it prosecutes internal corruption and graft.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

That's a poor answer to a direct question about a fundamental issue.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
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.
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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.
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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.
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I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
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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.

Rather than get sidetracked hashing over those quotes, how about accounting for the contradiction between your contempt for any government with Jefferson's assertion to the world that government is the institution that secures natural rights?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
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.

How about we save the speculation for some other time?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

Are you saying that you only like a little bit of America?

Social Security is no more a ponzi scheme than car insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance and health insurance are ponzi schemes.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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 don't think the point is moot. It was meant to emphasize the violent aspects of those functions of government. As for depriving people of their liberty, it seems to me that a faulty product, say food contaminated at a packing house in an unregulated production system, could make you sick, permanently disable you, even deprive you of your life and thus take away your liberty without violence or the credible threat of violence.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
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.

That strikes me as merely a better written tract in favor of syndicalism, with insurance companies in the role of mafia families. That's not justice. Earlier you claimed that old-age insurance was a Ponzi scheme. Now you tout a scheme that would rely on insurance companies to establish justice. That makes no sense. And from marketing perspective, it's a dog too. Insurance companies are not popular right now. Look at A.I.G.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
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.

So long as both parties not only the monied party get to choose the arbiter, but that's a big condition considering that only one party can likely afford to pay the arbiter. I think corporations pushed for greater use of arbiters for exactly that reason. Since they would pay for them, they would get to pick them and of course they picked arbiters that were not impartial to their interests. Arbitration is another scam designed to strip individuals of their rights.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
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.

I only skimmed it. It's clearly a response to Buckley. Although it aspires to set forward universal truths, it's grounded in the circumstances of the United States in 1960's, which is to say, where invasion is something the U.S. does to other nations rather than the other way around. In that regard, however, it's ahead of it's time by several years. Rothbard doesn't seem to have pondered the implications for the defending nation, especially when the invader has no respect for any kind of enlightenment ideals. Would his recommendations have worked for Vietnam against the U.S.? That's more speculation for another time.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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.

So you think it's a sin or something like that? You'll have to provide an example of such a situation. Meanwhile, your two points appear contradictory to me. For example, lets take a company where the employees have voted to join a union. In that situation we would expect the union and the company to negotiate a contract according to the law. It appears that you would find that immoral even though that is exactly what unions are about. So how can you claim to support unions and yet not support their efforts to obtain a contract for newly organized workers?

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

Coercive power? Are you talking about strikes? I find it odd that a Libertarian would refer to a worker's right to refuse to work as coercive power.

Here are a few recent anti-union episodes that did not involve strikes.

Bush Strips Employee Rights with Last-Minute Order (12/02/08)

Bush Suspends Pay Act In Areas Hit by Storm (September 9, 2005)

Homeland Security Dept. Loses Labor Rules Fight (August 14, 2005)

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

There's no gap in my logic here. No legitimate court of law would uphold a contracted entered under duress, so your talk of coercion is spurious. If you want to see a gap in logic, look no further than your abuse of the terms "ubermensch" and morality. You say coercion is immoral. Does that mean that you think it's immoral for a company to threaten to fire a worker who refuses to cross a picket line? I doubt it. From your remarks above, I assume that you think it's immoral for workers to strike. You probably think that workers only strike in order to get a pay raise or better benefits, but workers also strike because of unsafe working conditions. You probably think that's immoral too. You probably think that the moral thing for them to do is to keep working at the risk of life and limb and that if the government intervened to improve the safety conditions of the workplace that it would constitute graft and could only be considered immoral. I'm sorry but that kind of morality, your kind of morality gets people killed.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

I doubt he's as sharp as Lessig.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

Back to that again eh? The point of those two graphs was to demonstrate the correlation between gnp and gdp, not to restate my original counter argument. The GDP figures I presented earlier still hold. That article is based on flim-flam.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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?

Mostly. He gets lost in the deep end of the pool at times.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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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.

Their actions don't match their rhetoric? That's generally true of all politicians, but they say NO and they vote NO, so I don't think that's their problem. They aren't getting much traction outside of their fan base. That's their problem. The demographic trends are not in their favor either. They've alienated blacks, and Latinos and young people. They're looking at a future where they're only going to get votes from less educated older white married couples in lower income brackets. Something like that. I'd have to dig out the analysis to nail that down exactly. The bottom line, however, is that their future looks bleak. As I wrote before, they failed to take advantage of the RP Revolution. They could have used that shot of youthful enthusiasm.

The neocon invasion hasn't gone unnoticed: Why is the Center For American Progress Cavorting With Neocons? I'm disappointed, but not surprised. It was during the Clinton years after all that PNAC managed to get that resolution calling for regime change in Iraq passed and that they subsequently used as cover whenever a reporter managed to press them hard on the bogus rationales for the invasion of Iraq.



2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates - San Francisco

Median household income $65,519 Nationwide $50,007
Median family income $81,136 Nationwide $60,374

2005-2007 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates - New York

Median household income $47,581 Nationwide $50,007
Median family income $52,913 Nationwide $60,374

In Manhattan, Poor Make 2¢ for Each Dollar to the Rich (September 4, 2005)

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...
The lowest-income census tract in the city is a triangular patch of East Harlem east of First Avenue and north of East 119th Street, where, despite a hint of gentrification in a renovated brownstone or two, the neighborhood is dominated by the mammoth though generally well-tended public housing project called the Wagner Houses. The median household income there is $9,320, most of the residents are black or Hispanic and do not have high school degrees, 56 percent live below the poverty level and about one in 10 are foreign born.
...
Manhattan's highest-income census tract is a six-square-block rectangle bounded by Fifth and Park Avenues and East 56th and 59th Streets. The median household income in this mostly commercial section of East Midtown is $188,697 (average family income is $875,267); none of the residents identified themselves as black; nearly one-third have advanced degrees and more than one in three are foreign born. Even there, though, the poverty rate is 16 percent.
...

So there it is. $250,000 a year puts one well outside the middle class even in places like San Francisco and New York where the cost of living is very high.

Let's not forget that increase to the top marginal rates does not apply to the first $250,000 of income. The tax increase from 36% to 39% would kick in for income above $250,000, so the 250,001st dollar would be taxed at 39% (rather than the 36% at present) and so on for greater incomes. For example, a person with $500,000 income would pay the lower tax rates on the first 250k and the top rate on the second 250k. That person would retain $150k of that second $250k.

// edit - clarified the tax increase numbers

[Edited by - LessBread on April 6, 2009 1:31:32 PM]

Quote: Original post by Zahlman
You seem to conveniently ignore how much is handed back to you. :/

True. For all that money, I do get nice roads to drive on (no potholes whatsoever!), great panoramas from around the world (thanks to pics taken by our soldiers), and the knowledge that when I'll be too old to take care of myself, the state will take care of me (with the overflowing funds from social security).

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Debunk a loaded question? O.K. Let's see. Your question was presumptuous and loaded. I don't support government based graft. I don't agree that regulations create cartels and monopolies. I suspect that you're trying to associate your pet demons with the word "cartel" in order to take advantage of the recent flurry of news regarding the drug cartels in Mexico and hope that the negativity rubs off on your ideological targets. You're operating on the assumption that government is inherently corrupt and can never be otherwise, because regardless of the facts, your goal is to liberate corporations from the only institution capable of restraining them. You try to make an issue of the fact that sometimes government fails to restrain corporations, that sometimes, many times, corporations get the better of government and use it to further their nefarious ends, but rather than focus on the actual source of that corruption, you focus on the one institution capable of resisting.

Sad man. [smile]

I've described cartelization for the last couple of years, my post history documents it. That you ascribe it to the recent news verbage simply demonstrates that you don't get it. Earlier you tacitly admited that corporations exploit government to effect fiscal advantage. That denotes both cartelization and government based graft but you are incapable of connecting the dots.

As for liberating corporations from the "restraining effect" of government. I support the disbanding of every single corporation as a legal construct. Your characterization is entirely off base and ignores every detail of my counter-point.

As I said, I don't attribute it to malice but you are a corporations best friend when it comes to exploitation of power. You support the very mechanism they use to extract graft from the populace and your battle cry is "More! More!"

Quote:
Another loaded question. You're presuming that government is involved in graft from the start. Your question is akin to asking if a police department with a few bad cops should stop policing the streets while it goes about policing itself and getting rid of those bad cops. Government should protect citizens from graft even as it prosecutes internal corruption and graft.

Suddenly government isn't involved in corporate welfare? Isn't that the pablum you shovel every other day you're not posting in this thread? Can you truly not understand that by creating artificial barriers to entry that government created cartels?

50 million dollars to legally start a radio station within government compliance and licenses but there's exactly the same number of radio stations as would otherwise exist right?

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That's a poor answer to a direct question about a fundamental issue.

I'd argue that "I don't claim to know everything about everything." is a serious response to a question that presumes too much.

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Rather than get sidetracked hashing over those quotes, how about accounting for the contradiction between your contempt for any government with Jefferson's assertion to the world that government is the institution that secures natural rights?

In my view Jefferson's claim denotes the sole purpose of government. It is obvious to anyone reading that our existing government is not something he would recognize, and obviously he wouldn't support it based on his rhetoric. Because I don't see him as a prophet, who's ideology is sacrosanct, critically analyzing his views is not akin to apostacy.

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How about we save the speculation for some other time?

Supposedly you feel he was an impact player in US history and an intelligent one. Isn't the common critique of Bush that he doesn't change his mind in the face of new information? Yet you ascribe this same likelyhood to someone you purportedly respect?

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Are you saying that you only like a little bit of America?

Sure, are you claiming to be very fond of the KKK, Nazi sympathizers, and pedophiles? Each of these have effected laws and cultures that are part of America as well.

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Social Security is no more a ponzi scheme than car insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance and health insurance are ponzi schemes.

Except one is coerced whereas others are opt-in. You conveniently ignore the difference. There are other differences as well but only one of these will put you in a cage if you fail to comply or dead if you resist too aggressively.

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I don't think the point is moot. It was meant to emphasize the violent aspects of those functions of government. As for depriving people of their liberty, it seems to me that a faulty product, say food contaminated at a packing house in an unregulated production system, could make you sick, permanently disable you, even deprive you of your life and thus take away your liberty without violence or the credible threat of violence.

And this illustrates your irrational status you ascribe to government yet again, no matter how many times you deny it. What makes you think that no regulation would exist in a packing house in the absence of government? We both agree that cleanly prepared food is a positive good. What is it that makes government not only uniquely qualified to provide this good but in fact the only one capable of providing it?

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That strikes me as merely a better written tract in favor of syndicalism, with insurance companies in the role of mafia families. That's not justice. Earlier you claimed that old-age insurance was a Ponzi scheme. Now you tout a scheme that would rely on insurance companies to establish justice. That makes no sense. And from marketing perspective, it's a dog too. Insurance companies are not popular right now. Look at A.I.G.

Well, respectfully, you claim "that's not justice" but you lack the imagination to envision a non-governmental form of food regulation. Your mental toolbox on strictly liberty based issues probably isn't very finely honed. My issues are more along the border cases where Party A and Party B both attempt arbitrage at their personal insurers and no accord can be reached, and in cases where the very rich can afford uber-insurers that can effectively buy a decision from less successful insurers, and the less successful insurers offer a discount service to maintain clientele.(This is handled by the theory but it becomes difficult to visualize, very likely a failing on my part)

The goal is obviously to have equal justice, and I think this system may break down in similar ways that our existing justice system does on edge cases. That's not to say it may not be better, only that it suffers from some of the same flaws.

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So long as both parties not only the monied party get to choose the arbiter, but that's a big condition considering that only one party can likely afford to pay the arbiter. I think corporations pushed for greater use of arbiters for exactly that reason. Since they would pay for them, they would get to pick them and of course they picked arbiters that were not impartial to their interests. Arbitration is another scam designed to strip individuals of their rights.

Arbitration has a fine track record since Aristotle was throwing his first toga party. If you study its history you'll find it has been used throughout the ages quite successfully. I agree that many corporations attempt to stack the deck in their favor regarding arbitration, thus my qualifier. When you assume only one party can afford to pay the arbiter you make a huge assumption. Much as tort lawyers assume the cost of cases in return for a share of the tort so too might sureties exist for arbiters.

You suffer from the same flaw that I do in that despite Rothbard's caution against it, we compare what we have now and assign to it an idealization, and then do comparisons based on that.

The tougher mental exercise is to imagine that we all just landed on the face of the planet and we're debating what form of government to implement, if any. How will we handle a system of justice?

from the quoted text

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This point can be made more philosophically: it is illegitimate to compare the merits of anarchism and statism by starting with the present system as the implicit given and then critically examining only the anarchist alternative. What we must do is to begin at the zero point and then critically examine both suggested alternatives. Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: "We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other." I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state. When we start from the zero point, as in the case of the Jones family, the question of "who will guard the guardians?" becomes not simply an abiding lacuna in the theory of the state but an overwhelming barrier to its existence.

A final caveat: the anarchist is always at a disadvantage in attempting to forecast the shape of the future anarchist society. For it is impossible for observers to predict voluntary social arrangements, including the provision of goods and services, on the free market. Suppose, for example, that this were the year 1874 and that someone predicted that eventually there would be a radio-manufacturing industry. To be able to make such a forecast successfully, does he have to be challenged to state immediately how many radio manufacturers there would be a century hence, how big they would be, where they would be located, what technology and marketing techniques they would use, and so on? Obviously, such a challenge would make no sense, and in a profound sense the same is true of those who demand a precise portrayal of the pattern of protection activities on the market. Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the state into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. The most that we can do, then, is to offer broad guidelines and perspectives on the shape of a projected anarchist society.

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I only skimmed it. It's clearly a response to Buckley. Although it aspires to set forward universal truths, it's grounded in the circumstances of the United States in 1960's, which is to say, where invasion is something the U.S. does to other nations rather than the other way around. In that regard, however, it's ahead of it's time by several years. Rothbard doesn't seem to have pondered the implications for the defending nation, especially when the invader has no respect for any kind of enlightenment ideals. Would his recommendations have worked for Vietnam against the U.S.? That's more speculation for another time.

That article tests my commitment to the concept of non-interventionism and peace. He seems to advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament. This in the age of the cold war. How much of the anti-red propaganda was real? Would communist USSR have pushed west without the US deterrent? Would Hitler have conquered Europe? Would Japan be an empirial power with all of China as its colony?

I know the strength of the US military lies in logistics and force projection. Would this doctrine even be feasible under his proposed system? Like I said, I have issues with both cases.

[Edited by - Dreddnafious Maelstrom on April 6, 2009 12:51:03 PM]

Quote: Original post by LessBread
So you think it's a sin or something like that? You'll have to provide an example of such a situation. Meanwhile, your two points appear contradictory to me. For example, lets take a company where the employees have voted to join a union. In that situation we would expect the union and the company to negotiate a contract according to the law. It appears that you would find that immoral even though that is exactly what unions are about. So how can you claim to support unions and yet not support their efforts to obtain a contract for newly organized workers?

Let me explain myself and then you may consider that you've "won" this issue. Take your example where you have an employer and employees. The employees choose to form a union and attempt to renegotiate their payplans. Does the employer have the right to replace these people with other employees? If he does, but sees it in his best interest to concede to the employee's demands then I fully support this. This is the right to form and join any voluntary organization you choose, and is in its finest sense collective bargaining.

Take the scenario the other direction where the employees form a union and attempt to renegotiate their payplan. In this scenario the employer determines he would be best served by firing all of the new union and retraining new employees. I fully support this option as well. As an employer it is his right to organize capital and labor in whatever way best serves him. It's his capital and he hired the labor.

When the government passes laws that do not allow the employer to run his own business, that is to hire and fire as best serves the company then the result is a form of government based graft. If not for the threat of force from government, said circumstance would not exist. Thus rather than the company being able to dispose of labor as it best serves them government is able to dispose of labor as it best serves them.

So when government exercises the power it has co-opted from the employer it is just a stolen extension of the original right.

What makes this form of graft immoral is that it is a breach of private property. Government takes from the employer the right to choose who and under what circumstances operate on their products or capital. Which is theft, and theft is immoral.

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Coercive power? Are you talking about strikes? I find it odd that a Libertarian would refer to a worker's right to refuse to work as coercive power.

I think I covered this in the previous quote block but I wanted to make clear that anyone should be able to hire or fire, work or quit, for any reason.

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There's no gap in my logic here. No legitimate court of law would uphold a contracted entered under duress, so your talk of coercion is spurious. If you want to see a gap in logic, look no further than your abuse of the terms "ubermensch" and morality.

Conscription, which is a euphemism for slavery, is immoral and a contract enforced by threat of arms, as is selective service. The labor contracts we're discussing where the employer has stripped from him the right to choose his employees is a contract entered into in duress and enforced by threat of arms. Honestly man, you're ignoring my counterpoint and dogmatically repeating your assertions.

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You say coercion is immoral. Does that mean that you think it's immoral for a company to threaten to fire a worker who refuses to cross a picket line?

Obviously I don't. I think it's immoral to take from someone the right to dispose of their capital as they choose, and before you start working the "human beings arent capital" angle, I refer to the means of production and the choice of who works on and with them, not the human beings. To coerce a worker to cross a picket line would mean to put a gun to their head and force them to do so. Cancelling what should be a voluntary assosciation can not be considered coercion, unless you redefine the term.(Which I assume you will)

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I doubt it. From your remarks above, I assume that you think it's immoral for workers to strike. You probably think that workers only strike in order to get a pay raise or better benefits, but workers also strike because of unsafe working conditions. You probably think that's immoral too. You probably think that the moral thing for them to do is to keep working at the risk of life and limb and that if the government intervened to improve the safety conditions of the workplace that it would constitute graft and could only be considered immoral. I'm sorry but that kind of morality, your kind of morality gets people killed.

I support a unions decision to strike, so long as the employer can legally replace them. I also support a stronger interpretation of property rights that would insure that employers with unsafe working conditions will be fully on the hook for it and safety costs would be internalized which would eliminate the problem. This is another area where the government conspires with corporations to insure their welfare, and is another form of government graft. In this case they pass the costs of the safety of the working environment to the worker.

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I doubt he's as sharp as Lessig.

Well, since im well studied on Lessig and you dismiss Kinsella I guess you'll have to take my word for it. He's sharper, and far more consistent.

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Back to that again eh? The point of those two graphs was to demonstrate the correlation between gnp and gdp, not to restate my original counter argument. The GDP figures I presented earlier still hold. That article is based on flim-flam.

I was just pointing out that your dismay was based on your misreading of the article, and your refutation demonstrated your misunderstanding.

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Their actions don't match their rhetoric? That's generally true of all politicians, but they say NO and they vote NO, so I don't think that's their problem. They aren't getting much traction outside of their fan base. That's their problem. The demographic trends are not in their favor either. They've alienated blacks, and Latinos and young people. They're looking at a future where they're only going to get votes from less educated older white married couples in lower income brackets. Something like that. I'd have to dig out the analysis to nail that down exactly. The bottom line, however, is that their future looks bleak. As I wrote before, they failed to take advantage of the RP Revolution. They could have used that shot of youthful enthusiasm.

Yes, they could have. They may still after the implosion, who knows? It seems that you do ascribe to the notion that the country is slowly becoming more "progressive". How do you square that with your doomsday statistics of further widening gaps in real income and such? You never really addressed that last we discussed.

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The neocon invasion hasn't gone unnoticed: Why is the Center For American Progress Cavorting With Neocons? I'm disappointed, but not surprised. It was during the Clinton years after all that PNAC managed to get that resolution calling for regime change in Iraq passed and that they subsequently used as cover whenever a reporter managed to press them hard on the bogus rationales for the invasion of Iraq.

For what its worth I hope the neocons fail utterly and Kucinich takes over the party [smile] . That's not what's going to happen of course.

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So there it is. $250,000 a year puts one well outside the middle class even in places like San Francisco and New York where the cost of living is very high.

Let's not forget that increase to the top marginal rates does not apply to the first $250,000 of income. The tax increase from 36% to 39% kicks in above $250,000, so the 250,001st dollar would be taxed at 39% rather than 36% and so on for greater incomes. For example, a person with $500,000 income would pay the lower tax rates on the first 250k and the top rate on the second 250k. That person would retain $150k of that second $250k.

I'm not up in arms about this issue because it's not that important in the scope of things but it would be interesting to find out what percentage of people that this new tax effects employ other people, and thus what percentage of people find their current level of output less rewarding post tax and decide to make adjustments.

This type of tax issue is mana for tax professionals. Hell, they'll probably point to this as part of their job creation portfolio. Only problem being nothing is produced, its simply capital lost due to compliance, so it is more fittingly work than a job.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Debunk a loaded question? O.K. Let's see. Your question was presumptuous and loaded. I don't support government based graft. I don't agree that regulations create cartels and monopolies. I suspect that you're trying to associate your pet demons with the word "cartel" in order to take advantage of the recent flurry of news regarding the drug cartels in Mexico and hope that the negativity rubs off on your ideological targets. You're operating on the assumption that government is inherently corrupt and can never be otherwise, because regardless of the facts, your goal is to liberate corporations from the only institution capable of restraining them. You try to make an issue of the fact that sometimes government fails to restrain corporations, that sometimes, many times, corporations get the better of government and use it to further their nefarious ends, but rather than focus on the actual source of that corruption, you focus on the one institution capable of resisting.

Sad man. [smile]

I've described cartelization for the last couple of years, my post history documents it. That you ascribe it to the recent news verbage simply demonstrates that you don't get it. Earlier you tacitly admited that corporations exploit government to effect fiscal advantage. That denotes both cartelization and government based graft but you are incapable of connecting the dots.

As for liberating corporations from the "restraining effect" of government. I support the disbanding of every single corporation as a legal construct. Your characterization is entirely off base and ignores every detail of my counter-point.

As I said, I don't attribute it to malice but you are a corporations best friend when it comes to exploitation of power. You support the very mechanism they use to extract graft from the populace and your battle cry is "More! More!"

Nowhere near as sad as your loaded questions. You may have described cartelization for the last couple of years, but I only recall one other time when the specific word came up before this thread. I'm not connecting the dots because I disagree with your fundamental premise. I don't tacitly admit that corporations exploit government, I complain about it explicitly and have done so for years, dating back to times long before I joined gamedev. You say that you advocate disbanding corporations, yet you only state that after you've been pushed towards it. It's not a part of your leading criticism. You don't include it with your criticism of government. You only admit that corporations are a threat to liberty when confronted. And now you say that government regulation and government restraints on corporations are actually the mechanisms corporations use to exploit power and extract graft, but you have yet to lay out how that mechanism works exactly with a single example. You have yet to connect your theory with observations.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Another loaded question. You're presuming that government is involved in graft from the start. Your question is akin to asking if a police department with a few bad cops should stop policing the streets while it goes about policing itself and getting rid of those bad cops. Government should protect citizens from graft even as it prosecutes internal corruption and graft.

Suddenly government isn't involved in corporate welfare? Isn't that the pablum you shovel every other day you're not posting in this thread? Can you truly not understand that by creating artificial barriers to entry that government created cartels?

50 million dollars to legally start a radio station within government compliance and licenses but there's exactly the same number of radio stations as would otherwise exist right?

O.K. So you've pointed to some examples. I don't understand your question, since I didn't state that the government wasn't involved in corporate welfare. As I wrote, your question presumed that government was involved in graft from the start, as if corporate welfare has been the rule since 1792. Now you suggest that corporate welfare constitutes an artificial barrier to entry into the market. How do you get from welfare to barrier? O.K. So you meant to say that license requirements are barriers to the market. It might help if you avoided mixing up your complaints. There are good arguments to be made in favor of easing licensing restrictions on radio stations. That doesn't mean that all government licensing should be abandoned. I don't think it would be wise for us to stop licensing and regulating doctors, engineers, pilots or truck drivers for that matter. If you want to frame that as cartelization, go right ahead, it only undermines the appeal of your ideology.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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That's a poor answer to a direct question about a fundamental issue.

I'd argue that "I don't claim to know everything about everything." is a serious response to a question that presumes too much.

I wasn't asking about everything, I was asking about a specific assertion.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Rather than get sidetracked hashing over those quotes, how about accounting for the contradiction between your contempt for any government with Jefferson's assertion to the world that government is the institution that secures natural rights?

In my view Jefferson's claim denotes the sole purpose of government. It is obvious to anyone reading that our existing government is not something he would recognize, and obviously he wouldn't support it based on his rhetoric. Because I don't see him as a prophet, who's ideology is sacrosanct, critically analyzing his views is not akin to apostacy.

He wouldn't recognize much that exists in our world. You said he would likely change his mind if he knew what became of the US in the last 200 years, but now you claim that he wouldn't, that he would stand by his remarks. That's all speculation. You can only guess at what he would support in light of the last 200 years. I'm not claiming he was a prophet or that critically analyzing his views is apostasy. Critical analysis is what I've been asking for. I've been drawing attention to his assertion that government is the institution that secures natural rights and asking how an anarchist could find that assertion agreeable when it seemingly contradicts anarchism.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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How about we save the speculation for some other time?

Supposedly you feel he was an impact player in US history and an intelligent one. Isn't the common critique of Bush that he doesn't change his mind in the face of new information? Yet you ascribe this same likelyhood to someone you purportedly respect?

You're reading things in that aren't there. I'm not averse to engaging in such speculations. My goal was to prevent you from slipping out of the question.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Are you saying that you only like a little bit of America?

Sure, are you claiming to be very fond of the KKK, Nazi sympathizers, and pedophiles? Each of these have effected laws and cultures that are part of America as well.

I'm not claiming any such thing. I'm not claiming that I like everything about America.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Social Security is no more a ponzi scheme than car insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance and health insurance are ponzi schemes.

Except one is coerced whereas others are opt-in. You conveniently ignore the difference. There are other differences as well but only one of these will put you in a cage if you fail to comply or dead if you resist too aggressively.

Actual Ponzi schemes are opt in too, so the difference is irrelevant to the categorization. The lack of health insurance can leave you dead as well. 18,000 deaths blamed on lack of insurance: More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care... That number has likely grown larger in the 7 years since that report was published.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I don't think the point is moot. It was meant to emphasize the violent aspects of those functions of government. As for depriving people of their liberty, it seems to me that a faulty product, say food contaminated at a packing house in an unregulated production system, could make you sick, permanently disable you, even deprive you of your life and thus take away your liberty without violence or the credible threat of violence.

And this illustrates your irrational status you ascribe to government yet again, no matter how many times you deny it. What makes you think that no regulation would exist in a packing house in the absence of government? We both agree that cleanly prepared food is a positive good. What is it that makes government not only uniquely qualified to provide this good but in fact the only one capable of providing it?

Now that's sad. Seriously, you think that's irrational and that I'm in denial about regulation as you turn around and proclaim that companies will voluntarily regulate themselves? Seriously? After the lead in toys, anti-freeze in toothpaste, and the recalls of peanut butter, tomatoes, spinach and so on? You're seriously deluded.

Have you ever worked in a packing house? I have. Back in 1992 I inspected raisins for the USDA as they entered the packing house from the fields. There are certain things that if discovered in the raisins makes the entire container unfit for human consumption. Fecal matter is one such thing and I discovered some owl droppings in a bin of raisins and followed the rules. Now a bin holds about a ton of raisins, which were worth more than $1000 at the time. You can imagine that the farmer who grew those raisins was not happy with my decision to flag one of his bins as unfit for human consumption. He asked me to change my mind. I didn't. I told him that I had already cut him slack letting slide the large numbers of mice that were pouring out of his other bins. The mice were probably what lured the owl. At any rate, the farmer threatened to pull his entire crop, but relented. The packer had the power to arrange which loads were inspected and where on his property they were inspect, so he decided to punish me by moving me to another inspection area that was in direct sunlight all day and kept me there for a week. This was late summer so the temperatures were well over 110'F. I stuck with it just to thumb my nose at him. So you ask what makes me think that no regulation would exist in a packing house in the absence of government. Firsthand experience is what. What makes the government the only entity capable of providing food inspection? I wasn't beholden to the farmer or the packer for my paycheck, I wasn't obliged to fulfill either of their wishes. I wasn't stuck between them playing favorites either. I was neutral. My job was to protect the public, not the profits of the farmer or the packer.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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That strikes me as merely a better written tract in favor of syndicalism, with insurance companies in the role of mafia families. That's not justice. Earlier you claimed that old-age insurance was a Ponzi scheme. Now you tout a scheme that would rely on insurance companies to establish justice. That makes no sense. And from marketing perspective, it's a dog too. Insurance companies are not popular right now. Look at A.I.G.

Well, respectfully, you claim "that's not justice" but you lack the imagination to envision a non-governmental form of food regulation. Your mental toolbox on strictly liberty based issues probably isn't very finely honed. My issues are more along the border cases where Party A and Party B both attempt arbitrage at their personal insurers and no accord can be reached, and in cases where the very rich can afford uber-insurers that can effectively buy a decision from less successful insurers, and the less successful insurers offer a discount service to maintain clientele.(This is handled by the theory but it becomes difficult to visualize, very likely a failing on my part)

No, it's not justice and non-governmental food regulation is a complete joke.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
The goal is obviously to have equal justice, and I think this system may break down in similar ways that our existing justice system does on edge cases. That's not to say it may not be better, only that it suffers from some of the same flaws.

Out of the fire, into the frying pan.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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So long as both parties not only the monied party get to choose the arbiter, but that's a big condition considering that only one party can likely afford to pay the arbiter. I think corporations pushed for greater use of arbiters for exactly that reason. Since they would pay for them, they would get to pick them and of course they picked arbiters that were not impartial to their interests. Arbitration is another scam designed to strip individuals of their rights.

Arbitration has a fine track record since Aristotle was throwing his first toga party. If you study its history you'll find it has been used throughout the ages quite successfully. I agree that many corporations attempt to stack the deck in their favor regarding arbitration, thus my qualifier. When you assume only one party can afford to pay the arbiter you make a huge assumption. Much as tort lawyers assume the cost of cases in return for a share of the tort so too might sureties exist for arbiters.

Aristotle? Is that "argument from antiquity" supposed to convince me to favor arbitration? It's not convincing. I'm not aware of any cases in recent history where arbitration served any interest but those of the powerful. You're trotting out a stale ideological prescription that only serves the interest of corporations.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
You suffer from the same flaw that I do in that despite Rothbard's caution against it, we compare what we have now and assign to it an idealization, and then do comparisons based on that.

Rothbard cautions against it because it threatens his utopian illusion.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
The tougher mental exercise is to imagine that we all just landed on the face of the planet and we're debating what form of government to implement, if any. How will we handle a system of justice?

from the quoted text

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I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state.

Straw man. That's not the common argument for the existence of the state. It resembles an explanation for how the state came about, but such an explanation would not be the same as an argument in favor of the existence of the state.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I only skimmed it. It's clearly a response to Buckley. Although it aspires to set forward universal truths, it's grounded in the circumstances of the United States in 1960's, which is to say, where invasion is something the U.S. does to other nations rather than the other way around. In that regard, however, it's ahead of it's time by several years. Rothbard doesn't seem to have pondered the implications for the defending nation, especially when the invader has no respect for any kind of enlightenment ideals. Would his recommendations have worked for Vietnam against the U.S.? That's more speculation for another time.

That article tests my commitment to the concept of non-interventionism and peace. He seems to advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament. This in the age of the cold war. How much of the anti-red propaganda was real? Would communist USSR have pushed west without the US deterrent? Would Hitler have conquered Europe? Would Japan be an empirial power with all of China as its colony?

I know the strength of the US military lies in logistics and force projection. Would this doctrine even be feasible under his proposed system? Like I said, I have issues with both cases.

More room for speculation. Those are fair questions. I don't have immediate answers to them.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
O.K. So you've pointed to some examples. I don't understand your question, since I didn't state that the government wasn't involved in corporate welfare. As I wrote, your question presumed that government was involved in graft from the start, as if corporate welfare has been the rule since 1792. Now you suggest that corporate welfare constitutes an artificial barrier to entry into the market. How do you get from welfare to barrier? O.K. So you meant to say that license requirements are barriers to the market. It might help if you avoided mixing up your complaints. There are good arguments to be made in favor of easing licensing restrictions on radio stations.

Corporate welfare and regulation go hand in hand. Your distinction belies your lack of understand, in fact, much of your position I think relies on your lack of understanding of the relationship between business and government. I don't mean that disrespectfully. Simply because I haven't pointed out the relationship between govenment and monopoly specifically in each particular post doesn't mean I don't understand the issue. You're in such a rush to label me with your preconceptions you often miss the point.

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That doesn't mean that all government licensing should be abandoned. I don't think it would be wise for us to stop licensing and regulating doctors, engineers, pilots or truck drivers for that matter. If you want to frame that as cartelization, go right ahead, it only undermines the appeal of your ideology.

I don't know if ALL government licensing should be abandoned but most of it should. What you point to is cartelization. You are obviously willing to accept these types of government created cartels. Which means, when next I call you a monopolist the response "Yes" would be appropriate.

You suffer under two assumptions. That government is uniquely capable to identify and license the proper people for whichever role and that there can be no private alternative that functions as well or better.

You also believe that you, or whomever can effectively manage a series of barriers to entry better than millions of people acting in concert. It's really silly once you have the full understanding of it.

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He wouldn't recognize much that exists in our world. You said he would likely change his mind if he knew what became of the US in the last 200 years, but now you claim that he wouldn't, that he would stand by his remarks.

I'm having a hard time seeing where you drew that conclusion.

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That's all speculation. You can only guess at what he would support in light of the last 200 years. I'm not claiming he was a prophet or that critically analyzing his views is apostasy. Critical analysis is what I've been asking for. I've been drawing attention to his assertion that government is the institution that secures natural rights and asking how an anarchist could find that assertion agreeable when it seemingly contradicts anarchism.

Maybe his revision would embrace anarchism? I don't know. I admitted speculation on my part.

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You're reading things in that aren't there. I'm not averse to engaging in such speculations. My goal was to prevent you from slipping out of the question.

Your goal was to kick a dead horse, kudos. In the words of GW, Mission Accomplished.

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Actual Ponzi schemes are opt in too, so the difference is irrelevant to the categorization. The lack of health insurance can leave you dead as well. 18,000 deaths blamed on lack of insurance: More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care... That number has likely grown larger in the 7 years since that report was published.

But FICA isn't opt in, don't dodge the point.

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Now that's sad. Seriously, you think that's irrational and that I'm in denial about regulation as you turn around and proclaim that companies will voluntarily regulate themselves? Seriously? After the lead in toys, anti-freeze in toothpaste, and the recalls of peanut butter, tomatoes, spinach and so on? You're seriously deluded.

Right, I'm deluded, because every sin you list off took place under the watchful eye of the regulations you so cherish. Of course, they weren't enforced right, right. As always, you seek a better managed monopoly, never recognizing that managing a monopoly is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. Your super citizen had regulatory power over the products that killed people and failed them. How does that square? It doesn't, but by all means bring on the clowns.

Quote: Have you ever worked in a packing house? I have...

Sounds like you were one of many government employees they'd dealt with and most of them folded like a house of cards. Hardly confidence inspiring.

I don't personally think self regulation is the silver bullet for every product but it has worked thus far for video games. I'd think more along the lines of third party companies that make a living by issue a seal of approval over X goods and marketing that seal. Think UL.

If you think the FDA is the one governmental arm completely immune to corruption then I'll know your opinion is constructed entirely for the purposes of this thread.

If nothing else allow a basket of non-governmental FDA-like organizations to exist. People like you, that believe in Uncle Sama Clause can strictly purchase FDA approved foods and take FDA approved drugs. Meanwhile, the other organizations can independently research and certify food goods and drugs.

Producers get multiply paths to bring their goods to market and the public gets an increased amount of choices.


The beauty of this is that the FDA would be defunct shortly after and this debate would be moot.

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No, it's not justice and non-governmental food regulation is a complete joke.

Claiming a monopoly on a term as nebulous as justice and pretending to have full knowledge of the human potential regarding a complex issue is the height of arrogance.

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Aristotle? Is that "argument from antiquity" supposed to convince me to favor arbitration? It's not convincing. I'm not aware of any cases in recent history where arbitration served any interest but those of the powerful. You're trotting out a stale ideological prescription that only serves the interest of corporations.

There's a lot you're not aware of my man. You seemed to think arbitration was some new construct to rip off the common man when it has a long and successful history. If we confine this discussion to what you're aware of it on this issue we wouldn't have much to say would we?

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Rothbard cautions against it because it threatens his utopian illusion.

He makes a logical point it just doesn't serve your interest.

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Straw man. That's not the common argument for the existence of the state. It resembles an explanation for how the state came about, but such an explanation would not be the same as an argument in favor of the existence of the state.

His point stands. Giving all the guns and power to the Jones's is ridiculous on its face. That's the thrust of the paragraph which you didn't address.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
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 irony is that the government built interstate highways at the request of the elite, and to the disproportionate benefit of the elite. And for railroads, at great expense to workers.

As well, the national highway system is not universally recognized as a good thing. The national highway system is certainly linked to American's reliance on oil / cars, the rise of huge national corporations such as Walmart, corporate farming, etc. As well as allowing the federal government to subvert smaller, more local democracy by exploiting a dependence on federal highway funds.

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The elites are ... the people who pay for political campaigns and who pull the strings of Congress.

You make some good points regarding the elites. What you're missing is, union leaders also fit into this category. It's the unions clout that is leading directly to corporate welfare for GM. It's unions that don't want more successful, less expensive education for our nations children. In addition, unions don't universally benefit workers either, as they usually reject merit-based benefits in preference of seniority. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against unions - I'm just not in favor of giving them political preference any more than I'm in favor of giving it to the capitalists.

The real problem is, governments serve the elite. It's probably an axiom of human nature. Even if we luck out with leaders capable of not directly serving the elite, history shows our next leaders will likely not be so benevolent. I and many others believe that a smaller, more local, and less powerful government is less capable of screwing me over.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by LessBread
So you think it's a sin or something like that? You'll have to provide an example of such a situation. Meanwhile, your two points appear contradictory to me. For example, lets take a company where the employees have voted to join a union. In that situation we would expect the union and the company to negotiate a contract according to the law. It appears that you would find that immoral even though that is exactly what unions are about. So how can you claim to support unions and yet not support their efforts to obtain a contract for newly organized workers?

Let me explain myself and then you may consider that you've "won" this issue. Take your example where you have an employer and employees. The employees choose to form a union and attempt to renegotiate their payplans. Does the employer have the right to replace these people with other employees? If he does, but sees it in his best interest to concede to the employee's demands then I fully support this. This is the right to form and join any voluntary organization you choose, and is in its finest sense collective bargaining.

Take the scenario the other direction where the employees form a union and attempt to renegotiate their payplan. In this scenario the employer determines he would be best served by firing all of the new union and retraining new employees. I fully support this option as well. As an employer it is his right to organize capital and labor in whatever way best serves him. It's his capital and he hired the labor.

When the government passes laws that do not allow the employer to run his own business, that is to hire and fire as best serves the company then the result is a form of government based graft. If not for the threat of force from government, said circumstance would not exist. Thus rather than the company being able to dispose of labor as it best serves them government is able to dispose of labor as it best serves them.

So when government exercises the power it has co-opted from the employer it is just a stolen extension of the original right.

I don't think you support unions. I think what you support, at least from the warped view you put forward here, is something along the lines of a fan club. Does the employer have the right to replace these people with other employees? It depends on what level of exclusivity was negotiated in the contract. In typical contracts the employer does not have that right, just as in most contracts one party does not have the right to violate the contract. The scenario in which an employer would have the right to violate an employment contract and yet would nevertheless voluntarily concede to the demands of an employment contract is unrealistic, to say the least. An employer so willing would not likely have been unionized in the first place.

The voluntary association that you envision is closer to a fan club than one dedicated to the collective bargaining of an employment contract. An employer owns the capital, but he does not own the labor of his employees. They loan that to him for a piece of his capital and vary the price of that loan with the expectation of future employment (among other demands). When you claim that an employer has the right to organize capital and labor in whatever way best serves him, I have to question your use of language. Serves him how? And what about serving the profit motive of the enterprise? Is an employer equivalent to the profit motive of his enterprise? It appears that you have a predilection for thinking so.

Your claim of graft rests on the mistaken belief that government has no obligation to protect it's citizens from each other. It would seem that you would see government intervention to prevent violence between citizens as out of bounds as well. You no doubt will deny this but in as much as you endorse the absolute right of an employer to fire an employee for speaking up about the lack of work place safety, for discussing wages and compensation with other employees, for engaging in union organization, for seeking improved conditions of employment, you're endorsing the perpetuation of an inherent imbalance of power that employers utilize as leverage against employees.

Subjecting employees to unsafe working conditions, forcing them to work overtime without pay, indeed, forcing them to work without pay in some cases, threatening them with dismissal and firing them without cause amounts to using violence against them. You will no doubt respond with examples of union violence against employers and their property, and take great umbrage with such actions because they violate property rights, what for you are the most important rights, the only rights ultimately that government should defend. You might even respond by asserting that the fundamental property right is individual's ownership of their body, but you might not respond that way because that assertion undermines your contention that the government should not interfere with employment contracts. That assertion would expose the double standard that holds that the government ought to protect the property rights of the employer but not the property rights of workers to control their bodies or their labor. In my view, the government has an obligation to protect both parties, but in recent decades has tended to side against workers. So if you're truly interested in targeting graft, you ought to direct your attention there, rather than at everyday people seeking to maintain some semblance of control over their lives.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
What makes this form of graft immoral is that it is a breach of private property. Government takes from the employer the right to choose who and under what circumstances operate on their products or capital. Which is theft, and theft is immoral.

And what do you know. You trotted out property rights as the foundation on which employers can exploit employees. Never mind the rights that workers have to the property of their body. If the government interferes to protect that right then it's graft, then it's immoral, but if the government allows employers to use and abuse employees as they see fit, that's perfectly acceptable to you. And that is why you don't truly support unions.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Coercive power? Are you talking about strikes? I find it odd that a Libertarian would refer to a worker's right to refuse to work as coercive power.

I think I covered this in the previous quote block but I wanted to make clear that anyone should be able to hire or fire, work or quit, for any reason.

And I think it's clear that those rights are not absolute.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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There's no gap in my logic here. No legitimate court of law would uphold a contracted entered under duress, so your talk of coercion is spurious. If you want to see a gap in logic, look no further than your abuse of the terms "ubermensch" and morality.

Conscription, which is a euphemism for slavery, is immoral and a contract enforced by threat of arms, as is selective service. The labor contracts we're discussing where the employer has stripped from him the right to choose his employees is a contract entered into in duress and enforced by threat of arms. Honestly man, you're ignoring my counterpoint and dogmatically repeating your assertions.

A more appropriate euphemism is servitude. Conscripts are paid and durations of service are limited. You might want to twist out of that by claiming that you were speaking in conceptual terms that apply everywhere and across all times, but your inclusion of selective service indicates that you're speaking in the context of the United States and it's history regarding the military draft. The counterpoint you've presenting is orthogonal to discussing the scenario of government intervention into employment contracts between private employers and employees. If you want to discuss the draft, then let's discuss the draft by itself and not tangled up with government enforcement of private labor contracts.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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You say coercion is immoral. Does that mean that you think it's immoral for a company to threaten to fire a worker who refuses to cross a picket line?

Obviously I don't. I think it's immoral to take from someone the right to dispose of their capital as they choose, and before you start working the "human beings arent capital" angle, I refer to the means of production and the choice of who works on and with them, not the human beings. To coerce a worker to cross a picket line would mean to put a gun to their head and force them to do so. Cancelling what should be a voluntary assosciation can not be considered coercion, unless you redefine the term.(Which I assume you will)

I thought you would elevate property over people. Threatening to fire a worker for refusing to cross a picket line is coercion no matter how you slice it, only instead of a gun, the weapon is a pink slip. Both threaten the worker's livelihood.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I doubt it. From your remarks above, I assume that you think it's immoral for workers to strike. You probably think that workers only strike in order to get a pay raise or better benefits, but workers also strike because of unsafe working conditions. You probably think that's immoral too. You probably think that the moral thing for them to do is to keep working at the risk of life and limb and that if the government intervened to improve the safety conditions of the workplace that it would constitute graft and could only be considered immoral. I'm sorry but that kind of morality, your kind of morality gets people killed.

I support a unions decision to strike, so long as the employer can legally replace them. I also support a stronger interpretation of property rights that would insure that employers with unsafe working conditions will be fully on the hook for it and safety costs would be internalized which would eliminate the problem. This is another area where the government conspires with corporations to insure their welfare, and is another form of government graft. In this case they pass the costs of the safety of the working environment to the worker.

And by legally replacing striking workers, the employer can make the strike go away while continuing to subject employees to unsafe working conditions. You would better serve your claim to support unions if you put your call for increased employer liability and responsibility for safety ahead of your assertion that employers have an absolute right to hire and fire and otherwise breach union employment contracts. Safety costs aren't born by employees. Inspection costs are born by the public, safety costs are born by the employer.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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I doubt he's as sharp as Lessig.

Well, since im well studied on Lessig and you dismiss Kinsella I guess you'll have to take my word for it. He's sharper, and far more consistent.

So you say.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Back to that again eh? The point of those two graphs was to demonstrate the correlation between gnp and gdp, not to restate my original counter argument. The GDP figures I presented earlier still hold. That article is based on flim-flam.

I was just pointing out that your dismay was based on your misreading of the article, and your refutation demonstrated your misunderstanding.

I didn't misread the article because I didn't read it beyond the first paragraph. The claims contained there were demonstrably false. The rest of the article did not warrant further reading.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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Their actions don't match their rhetoric? That's generally true of all politicians, but they say NO and they vote NO, so I don't think that's their problem. They aren't getting much traction outside of their fan base. That's their problem. The demographic trends are not in their favor either. They've alienated blacks, and Latinos and young people. They're looking at a future where they're only going to get votes from less educated older white married couples in lower income brackets. Something like that. I'd have to dig out the analysis to nail that down exactly. The bottom line, however, is that their future looks bleak. As I wrote before, they failed to take advantage of the RP Revolution. They could have used that shot of youthful enthusiasm.

Yes, they could have. They may still after the implosion, who knows? It seems that you do ascribe to the notion that the country is slowly becoming more "progressive". How do you square that with your doomsday statistics of further widening gaps in real income and such? You never really addressed that last we discussed.

Your premise assumes that as people become poorer they become more regressive. That isn't necessarily the case. What appears to me to be happening, for the time being at least, is that the country has rejected conservative economics and is ready to try a different approach that sees government as part of the solution.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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The neocon invasion hasn't gone unnoticed: Why is the Center For American Progress Cavorting With Neocons? I'm disappointed, but not surprised. It was during the Clinton years after all that PNAC managed to get that resolution calling for regime change in Iraq passed and that they subsequently used as cover whenever a reporter managed to press them hard on the bogus rationales for the invasion of Iraq.

For what its worth I hope the neocons fail utterly and Kucinich takes over the party [smile] . That's not what's going to happen of course.

I don't see neocon failure as leading to greater status for the progressive caucus. You have to admit that "cavorting" is a loaded term. The neocons are seeking an inroad, that doesn't mean they'll find it. It looks to me that they're setting themselves up to lobby on behalf of Netanyahu per their s.o.p.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

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So there it is. $250,000 a year puts one well outside the middle class even in places like San Francisco and New York where the cost of living is very high.

Let's not forget that increase to the top marginal rates does not apply to the first $250,000 of income. The tax increase from 36% to 39% kicks in above $250,000, so the 250,001st dollar would be taxed at 39% rather than 36% and so on for greater incomes. For example, a person with $500,000 income would pay the lower tax rates on the first 250k and the top rate on the second 250k. That person would retain $150k of that second $250k.

I'm not up in arms about this issue because it's not that important in the scope of things but it would be interesting to find out what percentage of people that this new tax effects employ other people, and thus what percentage of people find their current level of output less rewarding post tax and decide to make adjustments.

This type of tax issue is mana for tax professionals. Hell, they'll probably point to this as part of their job creation portfolio. Only problem being nothing is produced, its simply capital lost due to compliance, so it is more fittingly work than a job.

Obviously you thought enough of it to comment. I put forward those numbers in order to move that aspect of the larger discussion away from speculation and into the realm of fact. As for your inquiry into how this tax change might affect employment, it's worth pointing out that for the person making $500,000 per year, the change works out to $7,500 more in taxes. So much for the illegal nanny.

Just for the heck of it, a quick analysis in a fivethirtyeight blog comment about how much money $250k/yr is:

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As to whether $250,000/year (and we are talking households here) makes somebody rich, give me a freakin' break. You are talking about the wealthiest 2% of the country. If 98% of the country is working or middle class then frankly class has lost all meaning. Lets not forget the first time home-buyer tax credit, either.

You can live here, which takes 89,000 out of your pocket each year (tax deductible).
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/140-West-69Th-Street-Unit-104_New-York_NY_10023_1106990083

Lets say 20,000 in medical expenses a year (which is deductible). And because we wouldn't deign to raise the kids ourselves, we'll hire a nanny for 12,000.

According to H&R block's tax calculator you would pay 29,000 in taxes.

Lets buy a new hybrid Escape every 5 years, so it'll run is 6,000 a year (we get a tax deduction too). Throw in another thousand for various costs, and another thousand for use of public transit.

200/week on food sounds about right. That makes $10,400.

Lets spend 10,000/year to send all 3 kids to private school, since we just love the diversity of New York, but don't want our kids to actually KNOW any minorities. So that runs us $30,000/year.

After all that you still have 52,500 left over for clothes, taxes I didn't cover and other sundries. Not bad considering that is higher than the average pre-tax income in the United States.