This misconception is that individualism proscribes collective action i.e. all collective acts are performed by collectives.
Individualism does not proscribe collective action. Collectivism proscribes individual action. You can cooperate with someone voluntarily, but you cannot be commanded to act as an independent.
Did you just try to say the great trust buster is on your side in this debate? The creator of the national parks system. The Mentor to Franklin; creator of the New Deal. Really? Did you just try and make the argument that social democracy isnt what made America the so-called "greatest nation in the world?" That all this open and free trade wasnt facilitated by more liberal economic policies? Isnt that the definition of liberal? Are you trying to say that progressive policy didnt create 70yr life spans, literate societies, and roads from san fran to new york to orangeville, PA?
Really?
Adam E Zandarski
Thats my point. Your willing to provide for family and colleagues. What about the people you arent associated with? Are you just going to let them starve?
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Pskapompos: Thats my point. Your willing to provide for family and colleagues. What about the people you arent associated with? Are you just going to let them starve?
Somebody Starving says, "I need food."
Government official grabs it from Another Person and gives the food to Somebody Starving.
Another Person says, "I now need food too. I'm starving."
Government official grabs it back from Somebody Starving and gives it to Another Person.
Somebody Starving says, "I didn't get a bite yet. I'm starving."
Government official grabs it back from Another Person and gives it to Somebody Starving.
Another Person says, "Hey, I didn't get a bite yet either. I'm starving."
Government official sighs and finally wakes up.
Government official gets tired of this never-ending story and does some labour, finally, and picks an apple from the tree. Gives an apple to Somebody Starving and Another Person. These two go out, now full in the stomach, and make some clay pots. A trading system erupts as each is now actually doing some work.
"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe
I thought we were talking about the welfare state not about socialism. You mix welfare theft, public goods, and arbitrary private goods. Consider free education. What is better: to have bad education provided for free or good education with a variety of technologies for which everyone must pay tuition? What is better: to have free healthcare which is awful or to have private healthcare affordable to all which is good? What if it could be shown that it is impossible to have good free healthcare or public schooling? Would your opinion on these issues change? Paved roads are public goods within individual cities (as well as perhaps "limited space" monopolies and producers of positive externalities). If a city imposes a 2% income tax in order to build roads, I won't be too upset. But when the feds seize 60% of a man's income in order to construct technological terrors, that is a problem. Finally, energy supplies and food and drink safety can be better provided privately.
"I got mine and damn everyone else" is not part of libertarianism. What you have asserted is a filthy calumny. Here is Mises on classical liberalism:
[Liberalism] is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim.
Libertarianism is, among other things, a fulfillment of the demands of utilitarianism. But the utilitarianism it obeys is rule utilitarianism. And one of the rules is prohibition of theft. You just can't, in practice, have a welfare state and free markets. The former undermine the principles and morals on which the latter function.
Except all the apple trees are owned by Johny and he isnt giving them up for nothing. But party A has nothing. He lost it all in the flood. And he has no family to turn to.
If your taking from the poor to give to the poor your not getting anywhere. Were trying to go after whats not being used anyway. If you can convince some rich guy that if he gives up 80 billion dollars we can feed the poor, more power to you. But he wont get anything in return.
Meanwhile, hes not doing anything with that money. Its just sitting there. And ACTUAL people are starving. People who are working are starving. Poor is not just a product of lazy. Some of these people are trying very hard, they just dont have the knowhow.
But wouldnt a 2% income tax be stealing? And yes, 60% is terrible. But in reality, after all the adjustments and deductions, it isnt really much at all. Thats why they had to create the AMT. Tax rates were at 90% and still they were finding insanely wealthy people paying no income taxes at all.
So what do you propose is too high of a tax rate?
There is absolutely no reason why we cant provide quality education to many, and at least competent education to all.
Is there not a point where the amount of wealth you hold becomes symbollic and entirely useless? .
Pskapompos:If your taking from the poor to give to the poor your not getting anywhere. Were trying to go after whats not being used anyway. If you can convince some rich guy that if he gives up 80 billion dollars we can feed the poor, more power to you. But he wont get anything in return. Meanwhile, hes not doing anything with that money. Its just sitting there. And ACTUAL people are starving. People who are working are starving. Poor is not just a product of lazy. Some of these people are trying very hard, they just dont have the knowhow.
"Sitting there"? Now we are getting somewhere. Unless money is used as a store of value, in which case keeping a cash balance is useful as protection against the uncertain future, the rich guy's money is used in investments, in productive activities, and in particular, in paying wages to the very people who are allegedly starving.
You should read Mises's brilliant chapter on poverty in Human Action: pp 835-840. And don't come back to this forum until you have read it. The point: under capitalism "there are no ablebodied paupers."
Pskapompos: Except all the apple trees are owned by Johny and he isnt giving them up for nothing. But party A has nothing. He lost it all in the flood. And he has no family to turn to. If your taking from the poor to give to the poor your not getting anywhere. Were trying to go after whats not being used anyway. If you can convince some rich guy that if he gives up 80 billion dollars we can feed the poor, more power to you. But he wont get anything in return. Meanwhile, hes not doing anything with that money. Its just sitting there. And ACTUAL people are starving. People who are working are starving. Poor is not just a product of lazy. Some of these people are trying very hard, they just dont have the knowhow.
Well then Johny doesn't trade with anybody. He doesn't monopolize the apple trees. Plenty of them around. And again, the market is warped and that's why somebody has 80 billion dollars and somebody else none due to government regulation that helps the corporate 80 billion dollar dude and penalizes everybody else via taxes to give even more to the 80 billion dollar dude. Since you've admitted you haven't read hardly anything on what libertarian and Austrian economics is about I'm have no need to flood this forum with ideas you can read, hey even for free, right from this website. Once you've learned about libertarian and Austrian economics, then maybe I will find it worthwhile to discuss with you. If your not willing to learn, even when you can be educated for free (isn't that what you want), then you prove the point. Nobody can force anybody else to do anything unless that man or woman submits to the force. But I'm not forcing you. But under the state, if you still don't submit, well, the one doing the forcing will have to rely upon criminal activity such as stealing and murder but hey, that's the state for ya. And those finding this criminal activity to be legitimate are co-conspirators to this criminal racket and are by law criminals also, and since all law is moral (but not all that is moral is law), then by definition you saying the state being legitimate in its criminal activity, you, are also immoral. Until next time...
Pskapompos:But wouldnt a 2% income tax be stealing?
Technically, yes, but the situation is much less clear here. A city is the largest natural human community. Just as the members of a condominium settlement can impose a $100/month fee or head tax, so the citizens of a town can legitimately, in my view, have a small tax (it will be small, because of intense competition among cities for citizens and businesses) to finance a few genuine public goods. But the fact that a trivial tax for a specific purpose may be called for in certain special situations does not entail that the enormous amount and variety of taxes on the level of half a continent as a whole are not completely illegitimate.
Pskapompos:There is absolutely no reason why we cant provide quality education to many, and at least competent education to all.
Oh, you'd better believe there are reasons and plenty of them, if the education is government-run. But we can easily provide quality education to many, indeed, the vast majority, if education is, like cabbages and houses, privately produced.
But Johnny has alot of other people to trade with. Its just party A that lost everything and has noone to turn to. And Johnny owns the land the trees are on. There is no government authority providing him with additional apples. And if you watch the orchard, at least ten percent of the apples end up just rotting away, uselessly. What I want to do is convince Johnny that he doesnt always have to profit, and that he could easily give up a small percentage of his apples to those who cant pay.
Pskapompos:What I want to do is convince Johnny that he doesnt always have to profit, and that he could easily give up a small percentage of his apples to those who cant pay.
By all means, try to convince him to do so. I would hope he would donate to charity rather than let it go to waste. But it would still be wrong to steal from him. You have heard of private, voluntary charity, correct?
Pskapompos:But Johnny has alot of other people to trade with. Its just party A that lost everything and has noone to turn to. And Johnny owns the land the trees are on. There is no government authority providing him with additional apples. And if you watch the orchard, at least ten percent of the apples end up just rotting away, uselessly. What I want to do is convince Johnny that he doesnt always have to profit, and that he could easily give up a small percentage of his apples to those who cant pay.
If you want to convince Johnny to "give up" some of his apples, go right ahead and preach your gospel to him. The practice of "gleaning" is well-known. (See the Book of Ruth in the OT, for example) But what you are doing instead is trying to convince the government to take from Johnny by force and give to those who can't pay. Are you completely blind to the difference?
Read dchernik's post again. Apples may rot uselessly. Money doesn't.
Johnny, with his wealth, is - directly or indirectly - paying someone's salary with that money. If you take it to feed person A, then person B loses his job.
I think your position, Adam, is that Johnny ought to contribute to charity or tithe or whatever, and if he doesn't, then he is morally depraved. If the government forces him to do what is his duty to do anyway, who cares that Johnny is being coerced? Well, have you ever heard the expression "vices are not crimes"? Just because Johnny is a bad and stingy person does not mean that it's OK to steal from him. That would be a crime, whereas Johnny's behavior is merely a vice and "does not rise to the level" of a crime. A breach of a moral duty is not necessarily a breach of a legal duty, and that is precisely the case with Johnny.
I can imagine you, Adam, driven by the logic of your position, stopping strangers, who make more than, say, $40,000 per year, on the street and yelling at them: "You owe me money, motherfucker! I own you! Pay up now!" You really think you are special and privileged, ain't ya?
I think that private property is a contract with the people. To hoard your wealth while others starve is a breach of contract and is a crime. Smoking is a vice, not greediness. Serving oneself at the behest of all others violates peoples basic right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and is a crime.
Its not about ME. You are the ones protecting the self here. Its about US. WE owe EACH OTHER a decent civilized life.
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