Wealth Inequality

[Kshartle]

Google can have all the information they want about me, what I like, what I'm into, so on and so forth. If I'm using their product, that's fine with me. If they find a way to market to me, that means they are offereing me things I like better. I'd rather only see ads for things I actually might buy. Other ads are an annoying waste of my time.

Having the government bar a businessperson from learning about his/her customers in order to sell to them more effectively is just bizzare. Please don't try to save me from my voluntary choices. They are mine to make, not yours. I own my life. I am the only one with a legitimate claim on it.

[doodle]

Yes, but its the limited liability corporation and the organization of huge industry that is responsible for a lot of the material wealth we enjoy today. Eliminate the corporation and our material living standards take a hit. We cant have our cake and eat it too...

[doodle]

Kshartle,

I think the field of behavioral economics is starting to find that your choices, (although they may seem entirely of your own free will) are in fact controlled and shaped by those corporations. In other words the reach and power of corporations into our daily lives has brainwashed us so throughly that we really dont know what our "individual " preferences are.

[Kshartle]

Yes, but its the limited liability corporation and the organization of huge industry that is responsible for a lot of the material wealth we enjoy today. Eliminate the corporation and our material living standards take a hit. We cant have our cake and eat it too...

We can't organize and trade without violence or the threat of violence?

What do you think a corporation is?

[doodle]

The corporation is a creation of the state.

Who is going to be the arbiter when disputes break out in your anarchist utopia? In general, when there isnt a governmental court system to arbitrate you see people solving problems like the mafia.

[Kshartle]

Kshartle,

I think the field of behavioral economics is starting to find that your choices, (although they may seem entirely of your own free will) are in fact controlled and shaped by those corporations. In other words the reach and power of corporations into our daily lives has brainwashed us so throughly that we really dont know what our "individual " preferences are.

If they seem like my free will.....and no one is forcing me.....I'd be hard pressed to argue that they aren't. It's like saying, "I thought I loved her because it was my free choice, but I was really controlled by how attractive and nice she was to me. She thoroughly brainwashed me".

Business people are just trying to advertise their product. Apple hasn't "brainwashed" people into liking their products. They've tried to demonstrate and convice you that you will be better off with them.

Brainwashing occurs in government schools, where you learn that your heros are the presidents, teachers, cops, troops, firemen, basically everyone who works for the real mafia. That's where you stand up as a little kid and put your hand over your heart and pledge your allegience every single day from age 5. It's disgusting. The product of the brainwashing is all around us and all over this board in fact.

USA! USA! USA!
Viva la France!
Viva la Mexico!
USSR! USSR!
woot woot Laos is the best, we're number 1!!!!

[Libertarian666]

You don't need corporations to trade.
All you need is for the government to get out of the way.

As for "limited liability", I think part of the problem is that there are two kinds of "limited liability" that are often confused:
1. Where investors put in a limited amount of capital into a company (not necessarily a corporation) and can't be sued for the debts of that company;
2. Where managers of a company are excused from personal responsibility for their actions as officers of the company.

So long as everyone who deals with the company knows that its resources are limited, and agrees to deal with it under those circumstances, the first of these is compatible with freedom. The second, however, is not.

[AgAuMoney]

There is no final answer to this question of free-will vs. determinism, so for you to call the side Im arguing a load of crap is a bit bold.

I do agree that choices are influenced by background and environment.  But influenced is to control as light is to dark.

But determinism is a load of crap. It has absolutely no merit.  The so-called philosophers who propound such twaddle, and those who believe them, are fools or are trying to excuse their bad decisions.

[doodle]

But agau, can you describe by what other mechanism humans make decisions than genetics and environment? At that point we are getting into the realm of religion and belief.

When an event happens, my genetically wired brain interprets those events based on a database of prebious environmental stimuli that I have received over the course of my lifetime. I cannot jump out of my skin so to speak. In other words, if I were to take you and give you my exact genetics and my exact environmental experiences, you would become "me" and would therefore make the same decisions as I would because we would be the same.

That is to say, if under a certain set of circumstances I decide to act a certain way; if you were me (my genetics and environmental experiences) then you would act the same way....or else you wouldnt be me.

Thats a little confusing maybe, but I think its a reasonable argument for determinism.

[AgAuMoney]

But agau, can you describe by what other mechanism humans make decisions than genetics and environment? At that point we are getting into the realm of religion and belief.

What is the falsifiable test for determinism?  To be a scientific theory corresponding with the surrounding body of knowledge upon which it is based, it has to be testable, meaning falsifiable.

The status quo is free will, and has been for thousands of years.  To change that you are going to need a testable hypothesis, and determinism hasn't got it.

[MachineGhost]

I would be much more amenable to the "libertarian" position if they would  be more vocal about deconstructing the large corporate power structure and entirely removing the limited liability status they enjoy. Until they are more vocal about that, they are nothing but hypocrits in my opinion.

I agree.  But you continue to keep conflating libertarians with anarchists.  As moda pointed out, anything but anarchy is statism.  Libertarians may believe in anarchist principles just as Democrats believe in Progressive principles, the problem is the real world results are like Fascism.

[doodle]

I would be much more amenable to the "libertarian" position if they would  be more vocal about deconstructing the large corporate power structure and entirely removing the limited liability status they enjoy. Until they are more vocal about that, they are nothing but hypocrits in my opinion.

I agree.  But you continue to keep conflating libertarians with anarchists.  As moda pointed out, anything but anarchy is statism.  Libertarians may believe in anarchist principles just as Democrats believe in Progressive principles, the problem is the real world results are like Fascism.

But anarchy is a "no go" for its own reasons so where does that leave us? I think the state is just the imperfect reality that we have to live with. So ultimately we need to be more nuanced about what the "goal" of our society is and what form of statism serves that end best. Sometimes economic efficiency gets sacrificed for social causes that we deem more important.

[doodle]

Agau, I need to study the determinist position a bit more. Ive been working off of my own ideas up to now and I think Im going to need to bring in some reinforcements. From my understanding Einstein was a rather strict determinist and this debate still carries on within the scientific community.
Quantum physics seemed to introduce randomness and chance into the system but I dont think anything has been resolved. Anyways, Im going to do some more reading and get back to you...for the moment ill leave you with Einstein.

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player." A. Einstein

[MachineGhost]

But anarchy is a "no go" for its own reasons so where does that leave us? I think the state is just the imperfect reality that we have to live with. So ultimately we need to be more nuanced about what the "goal" of our society is and what form of statism serves that end best. Sometimes economic efficiency gets sacrificed for social causes that we deem more important.

I don't think anarchy is a "no go".  I think that with the right environment, it will flourish.  The environment has to shape the incentives of people not to resort to violence without using violence or it will be hypocritical and garner no respect like current government does today.  If socialism is the gradual step towards communism, then libertarianism is the gradual step towards anarchy.  Which would you rather see win, tyranny or liberty?  I know which side of the toast my butter is on.

[doodle]

But anarchy is a "no go" for its own reasons so where does that leave us? I think the state is just the imperfect reality that we have to live with. So ultimately we need to be more nuanced about what the "goal" of our society is and what form of statism serves that end best. Sometimes economic efficiency gets sacrificed for social causes that we deem more important.

I don't think anarchy is a "no go".  I think that with the right environment, it will flourish.  The environment has to shape the incentives of people not to resort to violence without using violence or it will be hypocritical and garner no respect like current government does today.  If socialism is the gradual step towards communism, then libertarianism is the gradual step towards anarchy.  Which would you rather see win, tyranny or liberty?  I know which side of the toast my butter is on.

How does anarchy deal with human disputes? I think on a planet moving towards 9 billion people there are bound to be a few disagreements. Who arbitrates and who enforces it? Or do we just move back into the world of might = right? Anarchy is just a non-implementable in the real world as far as I can conceive of. Maybe if we all had the rational composure of Mr. Spock it would stand a chance of working, but not with the current ego maniacal creatures that we are.

[Benko]

Doodle,

"Sometimes economic efficiency gets sacrificed for social causes that we deem more important."

Can you name me one country on the planet (not made up of 100% scandanavians which ain't representative of our country) where this has worked out well in the long run?  How many places has it been tried and not worked out well?

MG,

Aren't there always going to be people who for whatever reason will try to take advantage of the system i.e. don't you think there will always need to be police and some degree of curtailing freedoms or however you want to put it?  LIberty is great as long as your freedoms don't infringe on mine.

[MachineGhost]

How does anarchy deal with human disputes? I think on a planet moving towards 9 billion people there are bound to be a few disagreements. Who arbitrates and who enforces it? Or do we just move back into the world of might = right? Anarchy is just a non-implementable in the real world as far as I can conceive of. Maybe if we all had the rational composure of Mr. Spock it would stand a chance of working, but not with the current ego maniacal creatures that we are.

It would depend on what kind of law and order infrastructure there is and who is the final Supreme authority over such disputes.  I personally advocate libertarian totalitarianism by an all seeing supercomputer.  I have no faith in human beings; they are weak and corrupt and riddled blind with cognitive biases.

Lets say we take the world we have now and start rooting out the corruption and cryonism and stop empowering all the bad apples that advocate the use of inefficient violence to redistribute society's scare resources.  That's pretty much what the transition to anarchy would be like.  Everything that is good about now, but only better and without trampling on people's choices or liberty.  So even if the ultimate ideal is unreachable, it is not a massive human rights violation to proceed in that direction compared to communism.  I put my money where my mouth is.

Implicit in an ultimate anarchic society is prior informed consent to the terms and conditions where liberty is reduced for sake of social justice.  That's a pretty tall order compared to the way power works at present by subjugating everyone's accident of birth in a given territory for resource extraction.

[AgAuMoney]

for the moment ill leave you with Einstein.

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player." A. Einstein

It's hard to understand the many variants of determinism, but it is possible Einstein was simply talking about being unable to violate the laws of physics and that the entire universe always obeys those laws.

However Einstein was wrong about many things.  For example, he did not believe in quantum uncertainty ("God does not play dice with the universe" even tho he did not believe in an anthropomorphic God) and he also claimed "churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees" when historical facts illustrate a far more complex reality.

[AgAuMoney]

I personally advocate libertarian totalitarianism by an all seeing supercomputer.

I could never agree with that...  Perhaps I've read too much science fiction, or perhaps I spend too much of my time rooting out problems with computers.

Lets say we take the world we have now and start rooting out the corruption and cryonism and stop empowering all the bad apples that advocate the use of inefficient violence to redistribute society's scare resources.  That's pretty much what the transition to anarchy would be like.

Sounds good to me.

We have to strictly limit the power able to accumulate and be used at every level because if the power is available, it will be abused to restrict liberty.

For example, disband the U.S. federal gov't within 90 days and disperse its assets into the hands of the states where they now exist.

[doodle]

I personally advocate libertarian totalitarianism by an all seeing supercomputer.

I could never agree with that...  Perhaps I've read too much science fiction, or perhaps I spend too much of my time rooting out problems with computers.

Lets say we take the world we have now and start rooting out the corruption and cryonism and stop empowering all the bad apples that advocate the use of inefficient violence to redistribute society's scare resources.  That's pretty much what the transition to anarchy would be like.

Sounds good to me.

We have to strictly limit the power able to accumulate and be used at every level because if the power is available, it will be abused to restrict liberty.

For example, disband the U.S. federal gov't within 90 days and disperse its assets into the hands of the states where they now exist.

Who is to say that the state govt isnt too large and powerful after the federal government is disbanded? It sounds like eventually we just end up returning to some sort of small community like tribal system.....thoreauvian self sufficiency maybe or a type of feudalism.  I dont see the libertarian / anarchy position as a workable solution for a planet of 9 billion......unless we do some alterations to aspects of our evolutionary DNA.

Imagine the earth as Carl Sagan called it: "spaceship earth".  Imagine boarding a simple sailing vessel with 30 people and all of the problems, disagreements, decisions, and judgementscthat would have to be made. In all areas where humans group together, a power structure of decision makers and enforcers emerges. Trying to redesign the system to function at a higher level without updating the human machinery is doomed to fail.

[AgAuMoney]

Who is to say that the state govt isnt too large and powerful after the federal government is disbanded? It sounds like eventually we just end up returning to some sort of small community like tribal system.....thoreauvian self sufficiency maybe or a type of feudalism.

Non sequiter.

Definitely the state might be considered too large and superfluous.  And then communities (otherwise known as cities) might work better.  But there is no reason why we would all devolve into isolated, independent, feudal, small communities unless you are talking about wiping out most of the worlds population, in which case the 9 billion number isn't a factor either.

[doodle]

Who is to say that the state govt isnt too large and powerful after the federal government is disbanded? It sounds like eventually we just end up returning to some sort of small community like tribal system.....thoreauvian self sufficiency maybe or a type of feudalism.

Non sequiter.

Definitely the state might be considered too large and superfluous.  And then communities (otherwise known as cities) might work better.  But there is no reason why we would all devolve into isolated, independent, feudal, small communities unless you are talking about wiping out most of the worlds population, in which case the 9 billion number isn't a factor either.

So the United States disbands into 100's of city states like ancient Greece. But within those city states you will still have a power structure emerge. If want to live according to the precepts of anarchy, you must leave society. Society and anarchy cannot coexist.

If I throw a brick through your window because I caught you plucking apples off of my tree, somebody must arbitrate this dispute or we will end up solving it ourselves....which usually just results in might = right.

[MachineGhost]

So the United States disbands into 100's of city states like ancient Greece. But within those city states you will still have a power structure emerge. If want to live according to the precepts of anarchy, you must leave society. Society and anarchy cannot coexist.

It's clear you still don't understand what anarchy is.  Anarchy doesn't mean there would be no rules, laws, regulations, arbitrators, courts, or police only that society is organized and distributes scarce resources through voluntary means instead of coercion.  Since self-interest of the proletariant is far more "just" than that of a small minority of ruling elites, society would become more fair and just.  It is the ultimate form of democracy and further decentralization of statist institutions (i.e. Bitcoins) only serves to strengthen it.

[Pointedstick]

What MG said.

Furthermore, society never left the "might = right" phase. Any society with a government has simply delegated the ultimate use of might to that government. And with a single monopoly court and law system, if you find yourself on the wrong side of it, you will very much feel its might. What do you think prisons are? Why do most agents of the court system openly carry firearms, handcuffs, clubs, tasers, and other implements of might?

[moda0306]

So the United States disbands into 100's of city states like ancient Greece. But within those city states you will still have a power structure emerge. If want to live according to the precepts of anarchy, you must leave society. Society and anarchy cannot coexist.

It's clear you still don't understand what anarchy is.  Anarchy doesn't mean there would be no rules, laws, regulations, arbitrators, courts, or police only that society is organized and distributes scarce resources through voluntary means instead of coercion.  Since self-interest of the proletariant is far more "just" than that of a small minority of ruling elites, society would become more fair and just.  It is the ultimate form of democracy and further decentralization of statist institutions (i.e. Bitcoins) only serves to strengthen it.

Totally disagree. Or at least to the degree that saying all those government functions you mention aren't forms of coercion.  A police force, by its very nature, has to coerce people. Now some do that in ways that are recognized as "fair" and "just" more than others, but eventually they have to pull out the gun and arrest someone.

Somehow these people have to also get paid for what they do, and because there's often common benefit, it's hard to charge people a user fee... So you have to tax... Taxes are coercion and confiscation at the point of a gun. I don't care how small the community is...

Libertarians can't have it both ways.  You can't call for perfect individual sovereignty when the government tries to do some things, and then call for government to coerce me in some way that you find agreeable.

"Allocating scarce resources through voluntary means" is also real muddled when we can't even agree whose resources are whose in the first place.  In reality, a good majority of our resources aren't sovereign to any individual in the first place, and so your society depends on massive value judgements from the get go.

So if we're talking about full blown anarchy, we can't have public police or public roads or even private property as we know it today. Anything that involves my neighbors making decisions about how I move about the countryside, charge me fees for common services, puts concrete pathways put in front of me that I must cross a certain way and help pay for, etc, is statism of one degree or another. It's just statism that is palatable for your priorities and biases. Some people might rather have universal healthcare than police to help them defend "their" property.