Article: Europe's pain is coming America's way

[MediumTex]

Also, regarding "private" judges, eventually force has to be laid out, and I think the judges you mentioned would have to have been part of a system we'd have to call "government".  I don't think they were simply hired arbiters of justice.

If you read your credit card agreements and many other boiler plate contracts, you will find that you have already agreed to have all disputes settled in a private justice system in the form of binding arbitration.

[moda0306]

MT,

And who enforces the contract to agree to binding arbitration?  What if I were to just give them the finger, or they to me, when the dispute comes up?  It's all tied together by the threat of force by gov't at some point.

The only way I can see a fully private system of contracts working is to basically cease from entering any long-term contract.  Keep everything short-term, so the real glue holding the contract together is the future relationship between the two parties... to be honest, this is kind of what drives a lot of our contracts.  Most providers of services do well because they want future business, not because they think they'll get sued if they don't provide excellent service.

However, if we want long-term contracts to succeed, or more specifically, long-lived investment with large cost outlay, we're probably going to need a bit higher level of guarantee out there.  This is where gov't steps in, IMO, and tends to add real value.

[Pointedstick]

MT,

And who enforces the contract to agree to binding arbitration?  What if I were to just give them the finger, or they to me, when the dispute comes up?  It's all tied together by the threat of force by gov't at some point.

It certainly is today but it doesn't have to be, that's the key. Even now, the government does not have a monopoly on the use of force. Even within the existing government monopoly legal system, you and I are entitled to defend our bodies and even our property (in most states) with violence against those who aggress against us/it.

But more importantly, force doesn't even have to be required for the example of private arbitration. If you gave them the finger, they could put a permanent black mark on your credit score, have the bank just debit the money from your account, or send a debt collector to repossess your cash or property equal to the value of the reneged-upon debt. More powerfully, they could make your actions publicly known to shame you and discourage others from engaging in contracts with you in the future. If you skip out on your end of the deal, there are many ways in which your contract-partner can harm you or your reputation without needing to physically lay a finger on you.

In fact, in a hypothetical stateless society, you'd probably see the rise of a reputation system not unlike the modern credit rating system. We all need to know whether or not we can trust someone to hold up their end of a deal, abstain from violence, respect the rules of whatever property they're on, etc. Credit ratings already do this pretty well for your trustworthiness with credit and debt, and it works in an entirely non-violent way, but it still has tremendous power over you and your future actions. Food for thought.

The use of violence is one ultimate solution to these sorts of issues. But societies have over the course of human history evolved many more, such as shaming, shunning, reputation management, non-cooperation on future deals, exile, etc. The government we have basically only uses violence or the threat of it, but that shouldn't be confused with violence actually being required in all these circumstances.

[moda0306]

Pointed,

I like most of that in theory, but don't you see this as having SOME inherantly unstable elements?  Let's say I miss a loan payment on a car, and when some guy comes to take back the car, I shoot him for trying to steal my property?  Where does it go from there?

Maybe the trust we have in gov't has to do with some need for a paternalistic figure to have a final say in matters where the fear of the unknown tends to grasp us.

However, I still think, at its base, if the gov't didn't deed land, few long-lived assets would be developed that permanently attach to that land, and we'd have severely hampered productive capacity.  Production of real wealth is one thing that the whole idea of an uber-private system is based on.  I think a government can be very, very useful in developing that system... especially since I also agree with HB that one, if one wishes, can make themselves "90% free," as ridiculous as that tends to sound, and through various means, disengage from the aspects of organized society that they wish. 

One thing I use as an example is the productivity/popularity of areas that allow maximum freedom (as a jokingly convenient example, I use rural Mississippi), and other areas that have a lot of gov't structure and regulation to them, but are amazingly productive (Insert big city here, many of which are also very pleasant to live in, even California is much more productive than a lot of "red states.")  People pay insanely high amounts to live in those metropolitan areas or close by.  There has to be something more to it than coercion.  Some of the most expensive-to-live-in and productive cities in the world have very, very involved governments... managing transportation and utilities alone is probably insanely complex and important to the productivity of the metro area.

There's definitely something paternalistic about all this, but I think there's something inherently efficient and functional to the goals of most people to interact with others on some level, engage in various social/educational/physical activities, keep MOST of their wealth, be protected from the worst types of financial catastrophes, and make compromises to their freedom in some areas to get far, far more freedom in others, as they see it.

[Pointedstick]

Pointed,

I like most of that in theory, but don't you see this as having SOME inherantly unstable elements?  Let's say I miss a loan payment on a car, and when some guy comes to take back the car, I shoot him for trying to steal my property?  Where does it go from there?

What's preventing you (or anyone else) from doing that today? You could always shoot the guy who tries to repossess your stuff. Today if you do that you'll be kidnapped, imprisoned, and/or killed by the government. In a private society, it would simply be someone else doing it, but the key is that there would be other options too. You might be given the choice of being exiled and never being allowed to return, for example.

Maybe the trust we have in gov't has to do with some need for a paternalistic figure to have a final say in matters where the fear of the unknown tends to grasp us.

I think this is quite true. Throughout history, most people have demonstrated their preference for the promise of safety over freedom, even over actual freedom, or when the safety turns out to be an illusion. We're funny like that. This is why I believe that my hypothetical stateless society could probably not exist, at least not in a large form. Most people simply wouldn't want to live there. I might, but most people wouldn't.

However, I still think, at its base, if the gov't didn't deed land, few long-lived assets would be developed that permanently attach to that land, and we'd have severely hampered productive capacity.  Production of real wealth is one thing that the whole idea of an uber-private system is based on.  I think a government can be very, very useful in developing that system... especially since I also agree with HB that one, if one wishes, can make themselves "90% free," as ridiculous as that tends to sound, and through various means, disengage from the aspects of organized society that they wish. 

One thing I use as an example is the productivity/popularity of areas that allow maximum freedom (as a jokingly convenient example, I use rural Mississippi), and other areas that have a lot of gov't structure and regulation to them, but are amazingly productive (Insert big city here, many of which are also very pleasant to live in, even California is much more productive than a lot of "red states.")  People pay insanely high amounts to live in those metropolitan areas or close by.  There has to be something more to it than coercion.  Some of the most expensive-to-live-in and productive cities in the world have very, very involved governments... managing transportation and utilities alone is probably insanely complex and important to the productivity of the metro area.

I actually happen to live in the San Francisco bay area, somewhat by choice (took a great job). I can tell you with 100% certainty that this area is prosperous and popular despite the government, not because of it. Let me give you a rundown of all the services the government provides, and the effects they have on the area:

Taxes & regulation:
- State taxes are insanely high and byzantine in their complexity
- High taxes on the wealthy result in a highly cyclical budget that rises and falls in revenue with the wealth of the wealthiest. Recessions are cataclysmic because wealthy people lose a lot of taxable real estate and investment income.
- Absolutely everything is hyper-regulated to the nines. Businesses are fleeing. There are many overlapping government offices that make getting anything that must go through them done a challenge. Due to lack of money, fees for everything are insanely high. I pay $350 a year to re-register my car, and just had to pay $500 to get my name changed.

Law enforcement:
- Cops are fascistic in the extreme, and seem to take pleasure in harming the citizenry, even compared to other states I've lived in.
- Crime rates are above the national average despite the large amount of money spent on law'n'order.
- Gun laws are some of the worst in the country. People living in most urban areas (Sacramento being a nice exception) are prohibited from carrying firearms to protect themselves from this high crime rate. Many ordinary guns with scary-looking ergonomic features are banned and simple possession can land you in jail for years. Everything gun-related has a tax or fee attached to it.

Utilities:
- The free municipal water supply is polluted with carcinogenic chemicals. Everybody uses water filters or buys bottles water because the crap that comes out of the tap is dangerous.
- The monopoly energy provider sells electricity at a substantially higher price than neighboring states due to government mandates regarding how it must generate electricity and obscure perverse incentives (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California ... regulation)

Transportation:
- Basic road infrastructure is collapsing due to lack of funds. The highways are full of potholes. When you go on a road trip, you can always tell you've left the state because the road suddenly becomes a lot smoother. I'm not kidding! I suspect the bordering states make sure to keep their connecting roads well-maintained just to rub it in our noses, but the rest of their roads are substantially better-maintained.
- Said infrastructure desperately needs to be expanded to relieve the terrible congestion, but political pressure from environmentalists and hippies has put the kibosh on that. Thing is, they drive too so they're only hurting themselves!
- Government-provided mass-transit is a joke, even compared to other states I've lived in. There are several overlapping systems that are all slow, expensive, and poorly-coordinated. And all the urban areas are disconnected from one another. The state's projected plan to remedy this problem costs $100 billion (!!!!) It simply boggles my mind that the CA legislature can't figure out how to build a train from Sacramento to San Francisco for much less than the inflation-adjusted cost of THE ENTIRE APOLLO PROGRAM

Housing & education
- Incredibly restrictive building codes and zoning laws all but prohibit the construction of new residential developments or houses, artificially limiting the housing supply and causing a gigantic real estate bubble ($300,000 double-wides and $500,000 condos etc)
- Despite the restrictive laws, most houses are shoddily-constructed, under-insulated, stick-framed messes that will be hard-pressed to last 60 years and require constant maintenance
- Public schools are strongly affected by property tax revenues; schools in good neighborhoods are great and further push up real estate prices, while schools in bad neighborhoods are falling apart due to lack of funds


The reason people such as myself move to the bay area and other high-government areas is because of the amazing job opportunities, not the huge intrusive government. But these jobs have been created by innovative companies who are constantly hamstrung by the local governments seeking to shake them down for more tax revenue and threatening to withhold building permits unless they hand over some payola. I see it happen all the time. As I believe MT said, prosperous populous areas become that way despite the government, not the other way around. The areas become great places, and then government springs up to skim more and more off the top because the area can afford it with with the huge stream of prosperity it's throwing off. It's happening every day, all around me, and it's slowly destroying the place I live in because the government is killing the golden goose.

There's definitely something paternalistic about all this, but I think there's something inherently efficient and functional to the goals of most people to interact with others on some level, engage in various social/educational/physical activities, keep MOST of their wealth, be protected from the worst types of financial catastrophes, and make compromises to their freedom in some areas to get far, far more freedom in others, as they see it.

Very true. But again, none of that requires a government. I've lived in a stateless African village full of grinding poverty, and yet they managed to feed, clothe, educate, and entertain themselves despite the constant threat of corrupt police officers coming to literally steal their property and/or threaten to "arrest" (read: kidnap and rape) young women unless they got some tribute. The village was primitive and life was hard, but it was a functional stateless society that maintained law and order without police officers, educated children without government schools, and kept its freedom despite the nearby presence of a hostile government.

[Gumby]

Tyler,

Yes... I'd imagine reading a book about private roads would give me a very "Ayn Randian" cartoonish example of how they can work just fine.  That said, I haven't read it, so I'll put this on the back burner.

Well... some of the first highways in the United States were private — for racing purposes. And there are still many private highways in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_hi ... ted_States

[MediumTex]

Law enforcement:
- Cops are fascistic in the extreme, and seem to take pleasure in harming the citizenry, even compared to other states I've lived in.

"I'm a fascist, you know what I mean, and I shake my little tush on the catwalk..."

[lazyboy]

Pointed,

I like most of that in theory, but don't you see this as having SOME inherantly unstable elements?  Let's say I miss a loan payment on a car, and when some guy comes to take back the car, I shoot him for trying to steal my property?  Where does it go from there?

What's preventing you (or anyone else) from doing that today? You could always shoot the guy who tries to repossess your stuff. Today if you do that you'll be kidnapped, imprisoned, and/or killed by the government. In a private society, it would simply be someone else doing it, but the key is that there would be other options too. You might be given the choice of being exiled and never being allowed to return, for example.

Maybe the trust we have in gov't has to do with some need for a paternalistic figure to have a final say in matters where the fear of the unknown tends to grasp us.

I think this is quite true. Throughout history, most people have demonstrated their preference for the promise of safety over freedom, even over actual freedom, or when the safety turns out to be an illusion. We're funny like that. This is why I believe that my hypothetical stateless society could probably not exist, at least not in a large form. Most people simply wouldn't want to live there. I might, but most people wouldn't.

However, I still think, at its base, if the gov't didn't deed land, few long-lived assets would be developed that permanently attach to that land, and we'd have severely hampered productive capacity.  Production of real wealth is one thing that the whole idea of an uber-private system is based on.  I think a government can be very, very useful in developing that system... especially since I also agree with HB that one, if one wishes, can make themselves "90% free," as ridiculous as that tends to sound, and through various means, disengage from the aspects of organized society that they wish.  

One thing I use as an example is the productivity/popularity of areas that allow maximum freedom (as a jokingly convenient example, I use rural Mississippi), and other areas that have a lot of gov't structure and regulation to them, but are amazingly productive (Insert big city here, many of which are also very pleasant to live in, even California is much more productive than a lot of "red states.")  People pay insanely high amounts to live in those metropolitan areas or close by.  There has to be something more to it than coercion.  Some of the most expensive-to-live-in and productive cities in the world have very, very involved governments... managing transportation and utilities alone is probably insanely complex and important to the productivity of the metro area.

I actually happen to live in the San Francisco bay area, somewhat by choice (took a great job). I can tell you with 100% certainty that this area is prosperous and popular despite the government, not because of it. Let me give you a rundown of all the services the government provides, and the effects they have on the area:

Taxes & regulation:
- State taxes are insanely high and byzantine in their complexity
- High taxes on the wealthy result in a highly cyclical budget that rises and falls in revenue with the wealth of the wealthiest. Recessions are cataclysmic because wealthy people lose a lot of taxable real estate and investment income.
- Absolutely everything is hyper-regulated to the nines. Businesses are fleeing. There are many overlapping government offices that make getting anything that must go through them done a challenge. Due to lack of money, fees for everything are insanely high. I pay $350 a year to re-register my car, and just had to pay $500 to get my name changed.

Law enforcement:
- Cops are fascistic in the extreme, and seem to take pleasure in harming the citizenry, even compared to other states I've lived in.
- Crime rates are above the national average despite the large amount of money spent on law'n'order.
- Gun laws are some of the worst in the country. People living in most urban areas (Sacramento being a nice exception) are prohibited from carrying firearms to protect themselves from this high crime rate. Many ordinary guns with scary-looking ergonomic features are banned and simple possession can land you in jail for years. Everything gun-related has a tax or fee attached to it.

Utilities:
- The free municipal water supply is polluted with carcinogenic chemicals. Everybody uses water filters or buys bottles water because the crap that comes out of the tap is dangerous.
- The monopoly energy provider sells electricity at a substantially higher price than neighboring states due to government mandates regarding how it must generate electricity and obscure perverse incentives (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California ... regulation)

Transportation:
- Basic road infrastructure is collapsing due to lack of funds. The highways are full of potholes. When you go on a road trip, you can always tell you've left the state because the road suddenly becomes a lot smoother. I'm not kidding! I suspect the bordering states make sure to keep their connecting roads well-maintained just to rub it in our noses, but the rest of their roads are substantially better-maintained.
- Said infrastructure desperately needs to be expanded to relieve the terrible congestion, but political pressure from environmentalists and hippies has put the kibosh on that. Thing is, they drive too so they're only hurting themselves!
- Government-provided mass-transit is a joke, even compared to other states I've lived in. There are several overlapping systems that are all slow, expensive, and poorly-coordinated. And all the urban areas are disconnected from one another. The state's projected plan to remedy this problem costs $100 billion (!!!!) It simply boggles my mind that the CA legislature can't figure out how to build a train from Sacramento to San Francisco for much less than the inflation-adjusted cost of THE ENTIRE APOLLO PROGRAM

Housing & education
- Incredibly restrictive building codes and zoning laws all but prohibit the construction of new residential developments or houses, artificially limiting the housing supply and causing a gigantic real estate bubble ($300,000 double-wides and $500,000 condos etc)
- Despite the restrictive laws, most houses are shoddily-constructed, under-insulated, stick-framed messes that will be hard-pressed to last 60 years and require constant maintenance
- Public schools are strongly affected by property tax revenues; schools in good neighborhoods are great and further push up real estate prices, while schools in bad neighborhoods are falling apart due to lack of funds


The reason people such as myself move to the bay area and other high-government areas is because of the amazing job opportunities, not the huge intrusive government. But these jobs have been created by innovative companies who are constantly hamstrung by the local governments seeking to shake them down for more tax revenue and threatening to withhold building permits unless they hand over some payola. I see it happen all the time. As I believe MT said, prosperous populous areas become that way despite the government, not the other way around. The areas become great places, and then government springs up to skim more and more off the top because the area can afford it with with the huge stream of prosperity it's throwing off. It's happening every day, all around me, and it's slowly destroying the place I live in because the government is killing the golden goose.

There's definitely something paternalistic about all this, but I think there's something inherently efficient and functional to the goals of most people to interact with others on some level, engage in various social/educational/physical activities, keep MOST of their wealth, be protected from the worst types of financial catastrophes, and make compromises to their freedom in some areas to get far, far more freedom in others, as they see it.

Very true. But again, none of that requires a government. I've lived in a stateless African village full of grinding poverty, and yet they managed to feed, clothe, educate, and entertain themselves despite the constant threat of corrupt police officers coming to literally steal their property and/or threaten to "arrest" (read: kidnap and rape) young women unless they got some tribute. The village was primitive and life was hard, but it was a functional stateless society that maintained law and order without police officers, educated children without government schools, and kept its freedom despite the nearby presence of a hostile government.

Wow!!! I live in the SF Bay area and I know it's "bad" in some of the ways you describe but being a cockeyed hippy optimist I see that the water quality is really quite good (in the places I've lived) and reservoir system is exceptional. The parks system, open public lands and beaches are beautiful and fortunately somewhat protected from over development by greedy developers. And I agree that there are many problems, which you have quite well listed. Social pressure has helped government to keep some of the good things about living here. To jump from this reality to west Africa- you really lose me.

[MachineGhost]

If all government is coercion, what are the acceptable levels of government?  I know "less is more" to an anarchist, but every single level of government involves what could easily be considered a coercive act.

Any government that is illegitimate rests on violence and coercion instead of voluntary association.  Government is simply part of the chaotic violence of the state of nature.  There is no moral dimension to an institution based on violence and coercion.  So, an anarchist that accepts such an illegitimate government as having any valid function would technically be a minarchist.  A minarchist that accepts a "safety net" of some kind would be a libertarian, then a republican, then a moderate, then a democrat, then a communist and then an anarcho-socialist.

Also, since any level of government could be considered coercion, I think looking at coercion as the only consideration of the illegitimacy of government is logically flawed.  I tend to think looking at a mix of coercive nature of an act and the utilitarianism achieved is probably the best way to judge government, but even this is up for a lot of interpretation.

There's essentially three political theories used to justify the state: social contract theory ("transcendence"), utilitarianism (rational choice theory at the individual level) and justical justification (the state's unique ability to redistribute wealth in a "just" manner justifies its power).

MG

[Pointedstick]

Wow!!! I live in the SF Bay area and I know it's "bad" in some of the ways you describe but being a cockeyed hippy optimist I see that the water quality is really quite good (in the places I lived) and reservoir system is exceptional. The parks system, open public lands and beaches are beautiful and fortunately somewhat protected from over development by greedy developers. And I agree that there are many problems, which you have quite well listed. Social pressure has helped government to keep some of the good things about living here. To jump from this reality to west Africa- you really lose me.

Everything's a trade-off. Protecting the public land from greedy developers prevents those greedy developers from increasing the number of residential units, which keeps the price of the existing units very high. Is an increase in the number of easily-accessible park areas be worth an increase in the price of housing for everyone? I guess it really depends on what you happen to personally prioritize. I'm not much of a beach person, and I prefer a wide open desert to government-patrolled park areas. I have co-workers who absolutely love it here, precisely because they don't care about any of the things that annoy me and place great weight on things I don't care about. …Which sort of gets back to my point that most people wouldn't want to live in a stateless society. Government coercion can indeed result in positive outcomes for some; but not the coerced ones, of course! I guess it comes down to whether or not you see yourself as one of the coerced people. If you do, you're likely to resent the state. If, on the other hand, you see yourself as benefiting from government coercion, it's much more tempting to simply stop worrying and partake of the positive results.

As for the water:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/0 ... arcinogen/
http://www.sanjose.com/news/2010/12/21/ ... _tap_water

Finally, the village anecdote wasn't meant to have any connection to the bay area. Just an illustration that government isn't strictly necessary for people to be able to feed, clothe and police themselves.

[MachineGhost]

…Which appears to me to be a pretty accurate assessment of the state of our nation. I find MMR to be a brilliant description of how the monetary system actually works, but if Cullen's right that it can only continue to work so long as the federal government doesn't dramatically stray from the "public good" by favoring either itself or specific private interests who can capture its power, I'm not sure I'm optimistic. But then again I'll admit that I come at this from an anarcho-capitalist perspective, so fire away.

I think MMR vastly underestimates the corrupting influence of the lack of reserve constraints.  The decline in America started way back with the Continentals, accelerated under Lincoln's greenbacks, went to warp speed under FDR's gold confiscation and went parabolic with Nixon's non-convertibility.  We're due for the crash any day, now!

At what point in history has a crony, corrupt government ever reverted back to its original intent?  There may be hope if we can get judges to start doing their long-forgotten job of judicial engagement and uphold the original meaning of the Constitution.

MG

[Pointedstick]

…Which appears to me to be a pretty accurate assessment of the state of our nation. I find MMR to be a brilliant description of how the monetary system actually works, but if Cullen's right that it can only continue to work so long as the federal government doesn't dramatically stray from the "public good" by favoring either itself or specific private interests who can capture its power, I'm not sure I'm optimistic. But then again I'll admit that I come at this from an anarcho-capitalist perspective, so fire away.

I think MMR vastly underestimates the corrupting influence of the lack of reserve constraints.  The decline in America started way back with the Continentals, accelerated under Lincoln's greenbacks, went to warp speed under FDR's gold confiscation and went parabolic with Nixon's non-convertibility.  We're due for the crash any day, now!

At what point in history has a crony, corrupt government ever reverted back to its original intent?  There may be hope if we can get judges to start doing their long-forgotten job of judicial engagement and uphold the original meaning of the Constitution.

Don't hold your breath for that! They are after all, a part of the state. What incentive do they have to diminish their own power and that of their ideological allies?

Besides, the constitution is actually a pretty lousy document. It's basically a big centralizing federal power grab. Heck, it explicitly gives the central government the power to tax and grant monopolies on ideas, among other things. It's actually full of bad ideas. You wouldn't want the constitution to be read literally. No really, you wouldn't. For some light reading (heh) on that subject, try http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

[MachineGhost]

Over the years, Barnett argues, the Constitution's original meaning has been slowly eviscerated.

    The Commerce Clause has been interpreted as allowing Congress to regulate practically anything, starting with meatpackers in Swift v. United States (1905) and going all the way to hotels in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964). The unchecked expansion was finally thrown into doubt when the Court drew a line in United States v. Lopez (1995), but even this was heavily contentious, and Gonzales v. Raich (2005) reaffirmed the court's 1930s claim that private growth of plants for personal consumption, with no actual commerce involved, was "interstate commerce".

    The Necessary and Proper Clause has been read to allow Congress to do whatever they find not only necessary and proper, but also convenient for exercising their enumerated powers, starting with the creation of a federal bank in McCullough vs. Maryland (1819).

    The Second Amendment has simply been ignored.

    The Fifth Amendment's takings clause has been neutered by reading "public use" as "public purpose". See Kelo v. New London.

    The privileges or immunities clause has been interpreted as meaningless redundancy, starting with allowing Louisiana to create a slaughterhouse monopoly in the Slaughter-House Cases (1873).

    Ignoring the Ninth Amendment or treating it as if it were redundant to the Tenth Amendment has become Supreme Court policy, starting with the famous footnote four of United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938), which held that only rights listed in the first ten amendments could be protected by the courts. (Carolene Products itself ruled that Congress could prohibit entire forms of milk.)

    The Tenth Amendment has been made meaningless, insofar as Congress has assumed (and the Courts have permitted it) the power to do almost anything.

Barnett uses, as an analogy, the example of going to see the Constitution and finding it filled with holes. He argues that the Constitution followed by the courts is simply not the one written down and under glass, and that the only honest thing to do is to restore the lost constitution.

[Pointedstick]

No government can devise chains strong enough to bind its own hands in the future.

This elusive quest for a constitution powerful enough to restrain a government can only end in failure. The constitution is just a piece of paper. We can be outraged all we want when judges interpret it in ways we don't approve of, but that's the deal we get when we delegate to a government the authority to interpret the boundaries of the restrictions it has placed on itself. It's like giving the keys to the inmates and telling them not to let themselves out.

[lazyboy]

Wow!!! I live in the SF Bay area and I know it's "bad" in some of the ways you describe but being a cockeyed hippy optimist I see that the water quality is really quite good (in the places I lived) and reservoir system is exceptional. The parks system, open public lands and beaches are beautiful and fortunately somewhat protected from over development by greedy developers. And I agree that there are many problems, which you have quite well listed. Social pressure has helped government to keep some of the good things about living here. To jump from this reality to west Africa- you really lose me.

Everything's a trade-off. Protecting the public land from greedy developers prevents those greedy developers from increasing the number of residential units, which keeps the price of the existing units very high. Is an increase in the number of easily-accessible park areas be worth an increase in the price of housing for everyone? I guess it really depends on what you happen to personally prioritize. I'm not much of a beach person, and I prefer a wide open desert to government-patrolled park areas. I have co-workers who absolutely love it here, precisely because they don't care about any of the things that annoy me and place great weight on things I don't care about. …Which sort of gets back to my point that most people wouldn't want to live in a stateless society. Government coercion can indeed result in positive outcomes for some; but not the coerced ones, of course! I guess it comes down to whether or not you see yourself as one of the coerced people. If you do, you're likely to resent the state. If, on the other hand, you see yourself as benefiting from government coercion, it's much more tempting to simply stop worrying and partake of the positive results.

As for the water:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/0 ... arcinogen/
http://www.sanjose.com/news/2010/12/21/ ... _tap_water

Finally, the village anecdote wasn't meant to have any connection to the bay area. Just an illustration that government isn't strictly necessary for people to be able to feed, clothe and police themselves.

Thanks for the clarifications, Pointed, the water situation in San Jose and elsewhere is in need of a fix. A quote from the end of the second article:

"California is the only state that requires water utilities to test for hexavalent chromium and the imposition of limits is currently underway. After all, the Environmental Protection Agency has found that its presence in tap water is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”? Considering the situation in San Jose’s drinking water, the quicker they act the better."

Now the issue of Government being the source of all evil is confusing to me. It's certainly the source of some evil and inefficiencies in our society. But then so is unregulated business. For example, we could look at how hexavalent chromium got in the water and, then, who is going to clean it up. Connected with this: is if it's found that the chemical byproducts of a business is poisoning the water (or air) then that should change how one looks at the cost of doing business. Shouldn't the parties responsible, pay for the cleanup and restitution as well as ceasing to poison the land, water and air. How will all that happen without the law and it's enforcement by Government?
Most people I know would argue that the decline of roads, the closing of parks, the decline of public education and the persistant poisoning of the planet is happening because state and local governments have had to cut back on essential services to educate, maintain roads and protect the envornment. I've seen this decline happen along with a living wage for the past 45 years or so. I know these are complex issues and I really do have some faith in the power of innovation of private enterprise to solve some problems. I think, realistically, that problem solving of many complex issues is going to have to come out of a partnership of private and public interests. I agree with Mosler that the deficit hawks have it all wrong and that it's going to take more deficits, lowering of taxes, public spending and lots more money going to the states to turn things around.

[lazyboy]

"You wouldn't want the constitution to be read literally. No really, you wouldn't. For some light reading (heh) on that subject, try http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm"

Thank you, Pointed, I've read about half of that link and I find it brilliant.

[lazyboy]

http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

I read the rest of this link on law, really enjoyed it and agree with his analysis as far as it went. But I have some questions with regard to environmental law. If a private forum for resolving environmental disputes were the way to deal with issues such as the poisoning of the water in San Jose, for example, how would one proceed and who would  be represented? It would seem like the City of San Jose, or a Governmental agency, or an environmental group representing people who live in SJ would be on one side and the polluter would be on the other side. I'd be curious to see how such an arbitration or mediation process would unfold and how a settlement would be enforced.

[MachineGhost]

This elusive quest for a constitution powerful enough to restrain a government can only end in failure. The constitution is just a piece of paper. We can be outraged all we want when judges interpret it in ways we don't approve of, but that's the deal we get when we delegate to a government the authority to interpret the boundaries of the restrictions it has placed on itself. It's like giving the keys to the inmates and telling them not to let themselves out.

The only way we are even remotely getting near an anarcho-capitalist paradise is with a universal A.I. replacing judges and providing a uniformly fair, just and impartial authority that we just can't get with weak and corruptible humans.  I can't be the only one savoring this inevitable prospect.  I give it much higher odds of occuring than legal systems competing in a free market to optimize law.  It's just a matter of time.

But in the meantime, I still think its worth fighting the ideaological battle even if, obviously, we have long ago lost the entire war to socialism.  Whole generations have now grown up in concentration camps ("public schools") expecting the government to provide them everything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxHfYNTrnic

I would argue there would be nothing wrong with this way of thinking, if, and only if, existing government wasn't illegitimate.  Illegitimacy is not just a moral position; it directs all subsequent behavior and actions.  Surely the history of our "illegal" Constitution -- "illegal" in the sense that the conventional delegates were authorized just to revise the Articles of Confederation, not throw it all out come up with an entirely new social contract -- and its immediate usurpation is proof enough of that.

MG

[MachineGhost]

I read the rest of this link on law, really enjoyed it and agree with his analysis as far as it went. But I have some questions with regard to environmental law. If a private forum for resolving environmental disputes were the way to deal with issues such as the poisoning of the water in San Jose, for example, how would one proceed and who would  be represented? It would seem like the City of San Jose, or a Governmental agency, or an environmental group representing people who live in SJ would be on one side and the polluter would be on the other side. I'd be curious to see how such an arbitration or mediation process would unfold and how a settlement would be enforced.

You definitely want to read some scholarly books that have tackled that subject.  None come to mind at the moment, I'm afraid.

Unlike 99% of anarchists that are just pontificating armchair quarterbacks, and like Harry Browne, I care more about the practical means to freedom and what can be done now, today, so I'm much more of a utilitarian than a moralist.  But what good is utilitarianism without a moral foundation?  Even a utilitarian A.I. without a moral foundation would conclude, as I do, that humanity is a pest and should be terminated.  That is no different in logic than the ruling elite parasites living off society through "government".  It's 100% rational but its also 100% unjust.

For all those seriously interested in changing/reforming society instead of waiting for that A.I. to implement top-down justice, I strongly recommend reading this book: Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the Worlds Problems.

MG

[moda0306]

MMR simply describes the system as is, and of you read what most of those guys have to say they're pretty clear (most of them, anyway) they see too few constraints on banks.

[moda0306]

MG,

You still haven't convinced me that ANY government whatsoever is legitimate given the reasoning that our current government is not legitimate because coercion is involved.  If a democracy isn't legitimate, how the hell is a bunch of rich white men coming together deciding what the gov't should do, and that only rich white men get to vote?? 

I think it really comes down to the fact that you're not really anti-gov't, but, like most people, you don't like somethings that the government does, and your yusing inconsistent logic to assert illegitimacy.  A government that issues deeds to land that are backed by the threat of force is not small, and no more legitimate than a democracy that deeds land and has a few social safety nets... in fact I'd argue, the way the FF's set it up, it was less legitimate.  They had great ideas, but it was through a filter that was flawed given the times.  I actually give quite a bit of credit to the otherwise-unlikable Andrew Jackson for democratizing a decidedly Elitist elction system.

[Pointedstick]

MG,

You still haven't convinced me that ANY government whatsoever is legitimate given the reasoning that our current government is not legitimate because coercion is involved.  If a democracy isn't legitimate, how the hell is a bunch of rich white men coming together deciding what the gov't should do, and that only rich white men get to vote?? 

That's definitely illegitimate too! I can only speak for myself, but coming to believe that all government is illegitimate for me was a lot like learning that MMR is true; it really breaks your brain at first as you realize the whole cascading chain of other things you believe that are logically tied to the thing you're trying to convince yourself is wrong therefore must be wrong too. I'll go all the way down the rabbit hole and say that the founding fathers were just a bunch of British aristocrats who wanted in America what they could never have in Britain; rulership of the country without a by-your-leave from the king. The American revolution was not a popular uprising like the French revolution; it was entirely backed and funded by the aristocratic elites, and as such nobody should be surprised that the institutions they created for the new nation favored them and people like them. Sure, they wanted freedom, but they wanted it for themselves: freedom to rule in ways they perceived as wiser than what the king was doing. Early America wasn't this beacon of freedom that people think it was; just look at the Alien and Sedition acts. Slavery was enshrined in the constitution, as was unlimited taxation, the creation of a standing army, monopolies on ideas, etc. And just look at what it's become. It was nice if you were a white man who was an aristocrat or aspired to it, but if you were a poor white man, or a woman, or an immigrant, or a slave, things were politically about as bad or worse for you than it had been before.

[Gosso]

In a non-government setting, what happens to the "wealth gap"?  Would this not lead to revolutions and a more intense version of Occupy Wall Street?  Would we now have a plutocracy (or do we already have that?)?

I have a hard time seeing how a society can function without a leadership group, and in a leaderless society I have to think that eventually a leadership group would form, which would then lead to a sort of government.  For the majority of people I think they need/want to be told what to do, think, and believe -- although I wish this wasn't the case. 

Honestly, I'm pretty content with the system we have, it's not perfect, but I'd rather have the devil I know than don't know.

[Pointedstick]

In a non-government setting, what happens to the "wealth gap"?  Would this not lead to revolutions and a more intense version of Occupy Wall Street?  Would we now have a plutocracy (or do we already have that?)?

I have a hard time seeing how a society can function without a leadership group, and in a leaderless society I have to think that eventually a leadership group would form, which would then lead to a sort of government.  For the majority of people I think they need/want to be told what to do, think, and believe -- although I wish this wasn't the case. 

Honestly, I'm pretty content with the system we have, it's not perfect, but I'd rather have the devil I know than don't know.

Stateless society != Leaderless society. You're right that everybody (well, nearly everybody) needs a leader. But that leader doesn't have to be a brute who terrorizes people with violence. I think modern corporations serve similar social roles for people who want to fit into hierarchical tribes led by single leaders. We all have ways of seeking out the social arrangements we want when we have the freedom to.

[Gosso]

I think the only answer to truly limited government or minarchy is a very well educated population, as long as the vast majority are incapable of independent thought and rational, critical thinking they will be subject to propaganda, emotional appeals, and fundamentally flawed ideology's, it is almost impossible to find people who have the basic understanding of the illegitimate nature of most government, much less ones that can resist the siren song of power once they have been given a little taste of it.
 I don't see truly limited government as a likely outcome of the system we have now, no rally, no protest or vote will change that, "the revolution is internal" a result of self education and an aspiration to be autonomous, i see more and more of that revolution happening with the internet and some aspects of the liberty movement, and i keep some hope that there will be a "hundredth monkey" effect and it will some day hit a critical mass, but we still seem a long way off      

I completely agree.  With a highly educated public (I don't mean University educated), the need for a strong government would substantially decrease.  Unfortunately I think that 90% of the population doesn't give two shits about "thinking".

We get the government we deserve.

Added:  An educated population is the greatest threat to the power of a strong government.  In Russia during the Stalin era the intelligent population were rounded up and placed into labour camps, and one of the projects they had was to construct the Road of Bones.  Here is a clip from the Long Way 'Round, where they attempt to cross some of the more difficult areas of the Road of Bones (4:21): http://youtu.be/cdgLHO787-0