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More simply, jrod, is slavery an example of a lack of social or economic freedom?
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Nov 19, 2015 14:39
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jrodefeld posted:How is it a contradiction that a specific study by a libertarian group, Cato, ranks the various countries by their adherence to economic liberty but not personal liberty? Each study has parameters and a defined scope. That hardly means that something outside the scope of this particular study is somehow not important to libertarians as a group. No, you don't get off that easily, ace. Time and time again you've tried to hit us over the head with how economic liberties are human right, you don't get to arbitrarily hive the one off from the other when you get caught using an argument that lauds literal slaver states for being "more free." Seriously, what good is that Cato study, and why on earth should we grant it any credence whatsoever? What possible use would be considering the other, non-slaver nations it cites as "more free" than the mean ol' regulatory US when it ranks them using metrics that allow slavers to also be that high in the mix?
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Nov 19, 2015 14:44
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Ravenfood posted:More simply, jrod, is slavery an example of a lack of social or economic freedom? See I thought that he was going to go in the direction of trying to claim that enslavement is an infringement on social but not economic freedom, and hammer on that, but he just straight up ignored it in that post in favor of talking about how they kill gays.
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Nov 19, 2015 14:50
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oh poo poo he's back and posting up a storm get help jrod
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Nov 19, 2015 14:52
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Jrod, if property rights, including the right to treat other humans as property, infringe on and are an outrage to the social and political rights that you said are of higher moral value than economic rights, as they do in slaver states that you've cited as being more free than the U.S., then Why Should We Care About Property Rights?
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Nov 19, 2015 15:07
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jrodefeld posted:To state the obvious, it is not only libertarians who value private property rights. All political ideologies have a strong conviction on private property. Many of them do, sure. quote:Marxists have a deeply felt conviction that the product of the worker's labor is their property and therefore the Capitalist is a thief by pocketing a profit from the product manufactured by the worker. That is why they feel it is justified for the workers to rise up and take control of the factories, taking them away from the Capitalist. It is not a random whim that is used to justify re-appropriation of property from the perceived thief to the "rightful" owner, but a consistent if mistaken concept of just property rights. This is hugely incorrect, Marxist theory doesn't conceive of the produce of labor as property. You're simply applying your own obsession to radically different worldviews. Marxism provides for the redistribution not only of the means of production but also the products of labor. Maybe you've heard the ultra-famous quote, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? That is to say, the right of another person to live exceeds your right to dispose of what you produce as you see fit; if you produce a surplus and there are others in need, your surplus can and should be used to support them. quote:Several posters on this very site accused me and fellow libertarians of committing "theft" if we were a tax protester to refused to pay taxes to the State. Therefore the principle is that the State, or "society", has a property right in the fruits of my labor. That is your property rights belief. Notice that we suddenly went from "private property rights" to " quote:Yet when pressed for elaboration, Caros in particular retreated into abstraction. "We're just a bunch of hairless apes who do whatever 'works'. There are no property rights but only utilitarian in-the-moment value-judgments on whose control of scarce resources are to be respected and whose are not." This is obviously a paraphrase but it comes pretty close to the argument offered. Yet if one is concerned at all with justice, as so many progressives claim to be, then a very clear ethical standard which informs us who has rightful control of what scarce resource must be clearly established. You may not agree with the libertarian standard, but an equally clear definition of just property must be offered in its place. He retreated to abstraction because this point is actually banal to the point of being meaningless. As you say, equitable distribution of scarce resources is a universal problem, which will be addressed by any ideology or philosophy that proposes a system for living in the world. Where everyone disagrees with you, Jrod, is in your support for arguably the worst, least efficient, and most inequitable such system. Libertarian is incredibly bad at protecting and distributing scarce resources, it has no mechanism for either besides the hope that things will work out just because ... quote:As I previously stated, libertarians believe that the original way that just property is acquired is through original appropriation i.e homesteading. Homesteading is a nonsense argument and it is obviously not the original way that property is acquired, because the idea of exclusive private property in the sense that libertarians use is pretty clearly only a few hundred years old. It was invented at a point in history when economic conditions made it desirable to social elites. That is, when European colonists in North America desired land held by Native Americans, they invented the idea of homesteading while at the same time pretending that the Native Americans did not qualify. Partly they did this by pretending that the Native Americans were not practicing agriculture, which was ridiculous. Another practice was defining other activities or relationships to the land practiced by the Native Americans as not counting for the purposes of determining property. e.g. Native Americans set aside and maintained game preserves for hunting, which doesn't count because it's not agriculture; e.g. Native Americans held farmland communally, which doesn't count because it's not private property. And in fact we can just quickly discuss some norms of ownership that were alternatives to private property. Communal landholding was the rule in most places throughout most of history. There is also usufruct, in which property is not owned but people have the right to the use of it. Think of English common lands, or the Mexican ejido. This can also apply to property that is owned by a person, but which others have a traditional right to live on and use. e.g. under feudalism the landowner could be said to possess land, but this merely entitled him to certain rights in terms of rents and free labor from his tenants. They had usage rights and were protected from eviction, and he had certain other obligations back to them. The idea of unlimited private property rights is, again, a fairly recent invention that came up simply because at some point it became economically beneficial to the powerful in society to arrogate to themselves the exclusive right to dispose of "their" property, so they changed the laws and property basis of society for their own benefit. Here, let Jake the dog explain it to you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2xakGZvLjI quote:This is a good question. The answer is that to formulate a coherent logical theory of private property, one must establish how property originally came into existence. You don't have the historical or anthropological knowledge to do this, which is why you rely on mythology and fantasy instead. Schenck v. U.S. fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 15:09
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GunnerJ posted:Why on Earth should any thinking person accept that a nation is economically free to any meaningful degree, much less in the top ten most economically free nations, if it employs slave labor? Why should we take seriously a standard of economic freedom that allows nations that employ slave labor into its top ten list of most economically free nations? Is it because "economic freedom" is not actually for workers, hmm? Bu..but the income tax is the real slavery system 
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Nov 19, 2015 15:12
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Panzeh posted:However, if a body is a piece of property, it can be owned, inherited, transferred, sold, bought. Of course you'll say that these things can only be done "voluntarily" but recorded history shows that you don't need to put a gun to someone's head to make someone do a lot of things, and considering the only coercion that libertarians recognize is 'putting a gun to your head', that strikes me as a rather toothless ethical foundation. What this person said (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 19, 2015 15:25
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Jrod, why would you post the Cato Institute's study without actually understanding the methodology it used? Did it never occur to you to actually sit down and take a look at how the list you were presenting as proof that libertarian economic policies were superior to non-libertarian economic policies and actually do the least bit of due-diligence to vet that list? You should have taken a look at those top ten countries and looked up what sort of policies they actually have and how those policies mesh with your own framework. But you didn't, because you're intellectually lazy and don't like to take critical looks at the beliefs that are dictated to you from on high. Nearly half of those countries have single-payer healthcare systems and strong social safety nets provided by strong federal governments. Are those now things that you as a libertarian support? Or are you talking out of both sides of your mouth again? This isn't the first time you've posted a study, article, or opinion piece that you clearly didn't read very closely, if at all, and obviously never had a full understanding of either. When it comes to someone who calls themselves a libertarian you have absolutely no sense of credulity or skepticism. For gently caress's sake you spoke about the existence of welfare queens as if it were gospel truth and not a myth that was thoroughly debunked before Reagan even left office (and to my knowledge you've still not recanted your claims of women who's sole purpose in life is having multiple kids with multiple babies to game welfare for the maximum amount of money, despite it being so grossly misogynistic it should have been immediately obvious that this was a hosed up and untrue claim, but since it meshed with your worldview you assumed it must be true). And because of this when the huge, glaring flaws of your citations are pointed out to you you get put in a spot to either admit that, yes, the citation was heavily flawed and shouldn't be taken as seriously or to defend them using post-hoc rationalizations. So far you have only ever chosen to do the latter, and you have always failed at it until you leave in a huff (weird how your life always seems to get hectic when you're backed into a philosophical corner, huh?) or you try to "redirect the thread". And then you have the gall to accuse us of being unwilling to change our minds when shown direct evidence contrary to our positions? gently caress you, you child, Caros and another poster (sorry I'm forgetting your name, but you're a cool dude) have both made substantial posts about how socialized/nationalized healthcare trumps privatized healthcare by every single significant metric and you have ignored them for well over a year! Sorry, sport, but if you want to talk to the adults and be treated like one yourself then that poo poo just ain't gonna fly.
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Nov 19, 2015 15:31
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Jrode, I want to diverge from libertarianism, racism and slavery or whatever for a moment and talk about the philosophy of philosophy. The goal of philosophy is to understand the world, and how it can work best. In a world where people disagree, that effectively means the goal of philosophy is to be right. But it's also OK to be wrong. I'm sure we can all admit that in our childhood we were all wrong about many things, and most people feel the same about adolescence, and many about college and even their adulthood. I personally cringe at the ideas I held even a few years ago, and can point to ways my opinions and ideas are changing regularly. For instance, at one point on these very forums, I made the claim that capital gains tax was paid on any increase in the value of your assets, not even realizing that "realized gains" was a thing. Many people immediately called me an idiot, and I slunk off for a while. If I'd been called out on it on my return, I would've said "I was wrong," and moved on. Admitting that does not mean that my conception of economics and the world was completely shattered. It does not make me wrong—in fact, although it makes me wrong in the past, it makes me more right in the present. When others point out my mistakes, I thank them for correcting me, because I want to be correct NOW, not to have been correct in the past. And this is the way the world works—outside the realm of philosophy, I'm sure you admit you're wrong all the time. If you miss an exit, you don't insist that that wasn't the exit and keep cruising down the highway. If you hand a waitress a 10 when you mean to hand a 20, you don't insist your debt is paid. When you're taking on a new task at work, you don't assume your intuition is more correct than the corrections of others who have done that before. And in any of those cases, refusing to admit you're wrong wouldn't make you right, but would rather continue your past wrongness into the present. I'm not asking you to recant libertarianism here. I'm not talking about your philosophy at the macro level, but the micro level. It's OK to say, "I didn't notice Qatar on that list, and I agree with your point and retract that example." It's also OK to say "I didn't realize there was slavery in Qatar, and I agree with your point and retract that example." Whatever reason you posted that link you don't HAVE to defend chattel slavery if that wasn't your original intent. If you admit that you were misinformed or uninformed but made a post anyway, we will all respect you more for it. We're all blowhards arguing on the Internet, and we've all overstepped our knowledge and made factual errors. We know what it's like, and we'll respect you more for it. Again, we've all done it many times, and we won't think less of you for ADMITTING that you walk back ideas and evolve and disown old opinions, rather than doing so silently and insisting you always thought this way. We don't care if you were correct 1500 posts ago, we care if you're correct now. I hope this post has some meaning for you, and that it really is discomfort accepting mistakes (a tremendously common trait, especially in America, and which you should not be ashamed of) that casues you to go down the rabbithole defending racists, misogynists and slavers. If you recognize this and begin to pick your battles and admit wrongdoing, you'll find a lot more high-effort, respectful dialogue, and a lot fewer accusations of watermelon-loving.
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Nov 19, 2015 15:44
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Who What Now posted:gently caress you, you child, Caros and another poster (sorry I'm forgetting your name, but you're a cool dude) have both made substantial posts about how socialized/nationalized healthcare trumps privatized healthcare by every single significant metric and you have ignored them for well over a year! Sorry, sport, but if you want to talk to the adults and be treated like one yourself then that poo poo just ain't gonna fly. Jrod rightly knows that there are more recent and more important posts to reply to, like how hot he is.
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Nov 19, 2015 15:50
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jrodefeld posted:While I wait for a response to my previous post, I'd like to again return to the subject of this thread. Frankly I'm not prepared to spend my time reading through all 35 pages of replies to take a tally of how many of you responded with substance about what constitutes just private property rights in your view, but from what I have read, I'd wager the number is small indeed. So I'm going to take a crack at this because, being a historical argument, it interests me as a historian. If I understand you, your basic point is that any social justice requires a sound standard of property rights to work out, and that your standard can even work out the historical injustices which many challenge you to resolve using it. Here's the problem: when faced with a massive historical socioeconomic injustice, your standard fails miserably at providing any degree of restitution. I am going to focus on slavery in the antebellum US here because I'm most familiar with it. jrodefeld posted:Through this theory [i.e. homesteading], we can clear up the historical record about which currently existing property titles are justified and which are not. And there can or should be no statute of limitations on justice. If past theft can be proven, even hundreds of years in the past, and a descendant of a previous victim of the theft can be identified then the stolen property ought to be returned to the living descendant. This has profound implications for the descendants of black slaves and Native Americans as I have already stated. Reparations are owned to victims of past theft, but proof must be offered that the person to receive the redistributed property has a better claim to it than the current owner. According to libertarian property theory, a prior owner has a better claim than a later owner unless the prior owner voluntarily parted with the property through gift or contractual exchange. It doesn't matter if the current user of the property is not aware that they are in possession of stolen property, the rightful owner is the victim of the theft or the direct descendant. This is a terrible standard for a number of reasons. The first one I want to discuss is the fact that it completely fails to comprehend the scope of the crimes of the conquest of America and slavery. Again, I will focus on the latter: The crime here is an indisputable matter of the historical record. For centuries, people of African descent in British North America and then the US were enslaved, i.e. forced to work without any just remuneration. I need to emphasize this because every interest of justice demands that this be rectified. In other words, any theory of rights and justice that cannot even begin to rectify it is a worthless standard, or at best, is only worthwhile in contexts where we must deal with issues less pressing than the theft of the labor of many generations of Africans and African-Americans. The theft involved here cannot be reduced to a question of individual entitlements to land. The problem here is not simply that slaves were not given a fair share of the land of the plantations they worked and their descendants are entitled to it. This is because the land is possibly the least interesting part of the crime of slavery. The land was only important in as much as it produced cash crops, such as tobacco, sugar, and cotton. We have to understand that these crops were amazingly profitable. It is not going too far to say that the production and sale of cash crops drove the rise of European global empires. Right away, with the phrase "European global empires," we have left the realm of tracing back from modern descendants of slaves in the US. The crime enriched and ran an entire global economy. But back to the US: individual Southern plantation masters were not the only people who unjustly benefited from slavery. Since they were producing a product for market, everyone involved in making money on the market for that product shares in the injustice. Since the product in question in the antebellum South was cotton, we have to recognize that it was a factor of production for textiles, one of the most important industrial products of the age. Northern industrialists, or really any owner of any textile factory using Southern cotton anywhere on Earth, benefited unjustly from slavery. The workers at these factories benefited unjustly from slavery. The customers who purchased finished clothing made from Southern cotton benefited unjustly from slavery. Financiers who invested in the opening of textile factories that used Southern cotton benefited unjustly from slavery. Any government levying a tax on any of the money made in this unjust system benefited unjustly from slavery. These unjust benefits compounded over time as investments on them bore fruit to the point that every bit of wealth in the modern United States of America is tainted by the blood and sweat of slaves. At this point it should be crystal clear to you that restoring a title in land to individual descendants of individual slaves does not even begin to rectify the injustice perpetrated on their ancestors. If you have even a sliver of the understanding of economics you pretend to, then you should see how loving worthless your plan is compared to the problem at hand. But we can go further to the second problem: unable to comprehend the scope of the problem, your standard provides no mechanism for dealing with its complexity. People have pointed out to you that it's a neat trick that the people least able to provide some deed to some stolen property are the most in need of restitution, and that is a part of this problem. But more generally, the issue is not of mapping individual modern descendants of slaves to individual property holdings because the tainted fruits of slave labor are spread too far around, held in too many hands, enlarged to far too great a degree, for this to ever be possible. And if your standard is not robust enough to deal with that complexity to any degree, it is worthless as a standard of justice. This leads us to a third problem: given that the scope of the crime, the identity of the criminals and victims, and their modern consequences are too large and complex for your standard to work out, we are faced with the unavoidable conclusion that the problem simply is not one of individual disenfranchisement. It is a collective crime, perpetrated on communities of people, affecting modern people with no direct individual line of descent from the original criminals (even assuming we wrongly limit the scope of this to plantation owners) and victims. White people descended from 20th century European immigrants benefit from the crime, and black people descended from later immigrants are harmed by it. That is because the economic crime created and sustained a social crime, that of institutional racism. The modern social boundaries of race between whites and blacks were shaped to a very large extent by the line between slaves and masters. This line never disappeared after slavery was abolished, and different forms of injustice and oppression developed from slavery successively to ensure that markers of race will benefit or harm individuals with no direct hereditary connection to historical American slavery. This is because race is a collective identifier. You claim with pride that as an individualist you don't recognize collective markers like race, but this is not anything to brag about because race is a social reality regardless of whether you personally choose to acknowledge it. Finally, a last problem here is that yes, it does matter whether some hypothetical black claimant to a piece of plantation land is richer than the poor whites who currently occupy it. That's because the problem, as should now be obvious to you, is not a matter concerning only present holders of titles in land. Doubtless these white owners of the land benefit to some degree from the historical crime of slavery through white privilege, but no justice will be done to its victims by dispossessing the poor whites of their land. This leads us to considering solutions. jrodefeld posted:Now complicated problems like this and past grave injustices can only be remedied with reference to a sound theory over what constitutes just property rights. Some modern advocates of reparations for slavery would have it that the State tax all white inhabitants and distribute that money to all black inhabitants. But this would clearly be unjust. Many whites never had ancestors who had a thing to do with slavery and many blacks never had ancestors who were enslaved. Such a reckless politically-motivated redistribution would exacerbate injustice by depriving some people of just property and redistributing it to undeserving recipients. It's not actually clear to me that anyone seriously suggests specifically taxing all whites to give money to all blacks. Proposals for reparations for slavery are not exactly coherent and unified in these discussions because the need for reparations is rarely given any serious consideration. Discussions of mechanisms usually involve absurdities like the one you've provided here, and only by the opponents of reparations to discredit the idea on irrelevant grounds. But there's a kernel of truth here: states and taxes must play a critical role. Remember who benefited from slavery: masters, industrialists, workers, consumers, financiers, and governments. Remember that this massive system of stolen wealth expanded and compounded over the years so that there's no part of the modern US economy untainted by it. Remember that the scars it left were not matters of unrealized individual entitlements to land but of the structural definition of social categories of race. The solution cannot be anything but collective, it must involved the entire economy turning some portion of its productive output to providing restitution, and that restitution must address racial injustice. It should not take the form of direct arbitrary transfers of money from whites to blacks, but of the whole nation's investment in infrastructure and opportunities for racially oppressed groups and for combating the institutional systems that perpetuate racism. This is not a perfect solution by any means. There probably is no perfect solution to such a problem. But it comes much closer to providing rectification than your facile nonsense about tracing individual land claims. I have taken your whole argument here as a test case for your standard of social justice through private property rights. I said at the start that the crime of slavery is a historical fact that demands rectification. If your standard cannot provide that rectification, there is no reason for anyone to accept it as sufficient. It can't provide rectification for the crime of slavery because it does not comprehend the scope of the crime, is not suited to untangling the complexity of the crime, and ignores the form which the crime takes in the modern day as it harms real people. So gently caress off with it. It's garbage, it doesn't matter, and no one has any reason to care about it. Your theory of property rights, as a basis for justice, loving sucks. GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 15:58
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JRod, let me tell you a little story. A while back, I wrote a computer model for my research to model how light passes through certain materials. It was simple and elegant. Also, about 10% of the time it predicted I'd get more energy out of the material than I put in, which is a blatantly absurd result. Did I present the model to my boss and get mad at him for "nitpicking" when he noticed the problematic results? Did I toss the embarrassing data points and claim the rest of the model was valid? Of course not. I tossed the model in the garbage where it belonged and started in on one that doesn't have the same problems. Because that's how these things work. If you carefully set up all your assumptions and logically follow them through to their conclusions, and those conclusions are loving insane, you have to go back and figure out which of your assumptions are wrong. Cato made a model of economic freedom, and that model gives high ratings to countries where huge swaths of the population have no economic freedom at all. That doesn't mean there are weird outliers, that means that the model is worthless, and you need to acknowledge that. And this keeps happening. Every time you cite somebody who shares your philosophical premises, we do a little digging and it turns out they use it to endorse the most heinous poo poo imaginable. After a certain point, you should start questioning why you trust these people, or even why you believe in their premises in the first place.
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Nov 19, 2015 15:59
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Jrod, you seem very careful to use the words "chattel slavery" when claiming that libertarians do not believe in slavery. Yet the material conditions of slavery in UAE and Qatar are identical to the form of labor slavery accepted by Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Do you believe that Nozick's concept of slavery is incorrect? How do you balance that with your claim that no libertarians believe in slavery, given that Nozick is well regarded among libertarian philosophers?
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Nov 19, 2015 16:04
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We've been over this, homie gives no fucks for Nozick. Anarchy State and Utopia endorses the existence of a state, however minimal, so JRod doesn't acknowledge him as part of the fold.
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Nov 19, 2015 16:08
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Captain_Maclaine posted:No, you don't get off that easily, ace. Time and time again you've tried to hit us over the head with how economic liberties are human right, you don't get to arbitrarily hive the one off from the other when you get caught using an argument that lauds literal slaver states for being "more free." Yeah it's pretty funny how libertarians will argue that violating property rights to protect human rights is a contradiction in terms because all rights fundamentally flow from self-ownership and property rights are inseparable from other human rights. Buuuuut then it turns out they prefer a government that dictates what you can and can't do with your genitals or impresses people into honest-to-god forced labor as long as it doesn't take a percentage of what the superrich receive in income. You would think that believers in liberty would never countenance something like the secession of Texas, because the Republic of Texas is still going to tax you and it's also going to viciously suppress human rights but nope apparently so long as those taxes are a bit lower (and target the poor) it's a win for liberty. This was one of the early cracks in my libertarianism: the stark contrast between the Libertarian party's rhetoric of freedom and the actual priorities behind the policies they support in practice. Igiari posted:Jrod rightly knows that there are more recent and more important posts to reply to, like how hot he is. tbf that blonde boy on mancrush.com which jrod curiously happens to have a handy link to could probably convince me to join ISIS 
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 16:18
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jrodefeld posted:I don't know how I could be any more loving clear. Libertarians absolutely, positively and without any reservations oppose all forms of coercive associations of which slavery is the most egregious. No, its not the loving end, you deluded idiot. Considering the evidence against you vocally proclaimed by people considered the cornerstones of Libertarianism, it is you going against the grain by claiming this.
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Nov 19, 2015 16:27
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Libertarians positively oppose all forms of coercion of which slavery is the most egregious........but it's still preferable to a 39% top marginal income tax.
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Nov 19, 2015 16:32
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VitalSigns posted:Libertarians positively oppose all forms of coercion of which slavery is the most egregious........but it's still preferable to a 39% top marginal income tax.  The South did nothing WRONG!
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Nov 19, 2015 16:32
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Nolanar posted:We've been over this, homie gives no fucks for Nozick. Anarchy State and Utopia endorses the existence of a state, however minimal, so JRod doesn't acknowledge him as part of the fold. Sorry my eyes must have glazed over that along with the times he claimed literal communists were von mises libertarian sympathizers.
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Nov 19, 2015 16:33
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jrodefeld posted:I don't know how I could be any more loving clear. Libertarians absolutely, positively and without any reservations oppose all forms of coercive associations of which slavery is the most egregious. To abuse your analogy, the problem is that the growth of forests depends on the soil from which trees grow. If you want us to believe that the best soil is economic freedom, you have to account for why healthy forests can be sustained on the tainted earth of slave labor. This is not an incidental problem. It is a fundamental flaw in your ideology as you are presenting it. Slavery in its fullest form is the absolute opposite of any degree of any kind of freedom: as a slave you are always subject to the arbitrary whim of your master and so anything you are allowed to do is only by the grace of your master's generosity, not your right. But even if we limit the nature of slavery to merely being forced to work without remuneration, that is obviously and unavoidably a massive breach of economic freedom, and any index or calculus of economic freedom that allows nations that practice slavery into its top ten list of free-est nations is bullshit. I know many people, myself included, have explained this to you already, and I'm only explaining it again as a preamble to considering your point about wealth. You would like us to believe that one of the reasons Why We Should Care About Property Rights is that respect for property rights is the basis of economic freedom, which is the basis for wealth. You point out that as we consider more "economically free" nations by Cato's reckoning, we see them as being more and more wealthy. But we know that slavery is a very profitable institution. So if we find that some of these most-economically-free and quite wealthy nations practice slavery, we must question whether that prosperity is based on economic freedom or the lack of economic freedom. Because slave labor pays slave owners very well. Suddenly, the whole question of property rights as a factor of wealth comes into question. Do we mean the property rights of slave owners? Or do we ignore the supposed right to self-ownership of the slaves? From here, it's reasonable to suspect that maybe this whole argument, including its premises and its conclusions, is suspect beyond the specific issue of slavery in the UAE and Qatar. It may be that "economic freedom," property rights, and wealth are nowhere near as important as standards of real justice and liberty as you believe, that in fact your ideas about what constitutes freedom may be suspect in a number of other areas. (As an aside, it's not obvious that we can credit "economic freedom" for the wealth of the UAE and Qatar for another reason: the presence of a pretty significant natural resource.) GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 16:35
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jrodefeld posted:1. Size of Government Take a close look at this list. Who cares about these things? Do you honestly think that workers give a flying gently caress about regulatory tariffs? They don't matter to most people. At all. You've got some fantasy that lowered tariffs will create more better paying jobs for everyone, but the data doesn't support this. Businesses love protective tariffs, it prevents cheap labor overseas from flooding the market. But forget that. I want to focus on 4D. D. Controls of the movement of capital and people (i) Foreign ownership / investment restrictions (ii) Capital controls (iii) Freedom of foreigners to visit Don't you think it's interesting that the movement of people doesn't matter here? Foreigners coming to visit is a big issue, but whether the people in this country can visit other countries doesn't matter. Nor does it discuss sending money to your relatives back home. Instead it's concerned about whether the rich can own property in other countries. The things that Cato judges countries on do not make life better for the vast majority of people. Remember your target audience here. We couldn't care less about your deontological ethics. Convince us that it will help the majority of people, or shut up and go away.
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Nov 19, 2015 16:44
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GunnerJ posted:I know many people, myself included, have explained this to you already, and I'm only explaining it again as a preamble to considering your point about wealth. You would like us to believe that one of the reasons Why We Should Care About Property Rights is that respect for property rights is the basis of economic freedom, which is the basis for wealth. You point out that as we consider more "economically free" nations by Cato's reckoning, we see them as being more and more wealthy. But we know that slavery is a very profitable institution. So if we find that some of these most-economically-free and quite wealthy nations practice slavery, we must question whether that prosperity is based on economic freedom or the lack of economic freedom. The whole list is a mess. It certainly doesn't seem to correlate with what libertarians actually support, since countries like the UK have a national health system. Why would we assume we should embrace libertarianism to be wealthy when those wealthy countries sure haven't. Even if there were a correlation with Cato's economic freedom index, since so many of the top 10 countries have UHC, we could conclude that UHC falls somewhere between irrelevant and essential for prosperity but we certainly shouldn't just assume that because, I don't know, low tariffs are correlated with prosperity that every libertarian proposal like abolishing UHC would also improve prosperity. Just because libertarians call low tariffs liberty and also call UHC liberty, doesn't mean that there's just one Liberty Number and as long as you find a link between wealth and low tariffs that the same link must exist between wealth and privatized health care. The whole argument rests on this equivocation where they call the things they like "Liberty", and then you just need to demonstrate that impartial independent courts are good for the country, and well we call that Liberty so we'll also call sweatshops and no public education "Liberty"...
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Nov 19, 2015 16:56
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The whole study is a huge cluster gently caress of claiming that correlation is causation. It's literally just saying "these countries have [x] which we call good, and are good countries, ergo [x] made them good countries". It implies, if not outright asserts, that it's criteria is both exhaustive and relevant to each nation's economic prosperity without actually showing it. It's a worthless study from start to finish.
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Nov 19, 2015 17:26
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:What this person said Also i'm gonna say that "You own your body" is a massive tautology but that's getting ahead of ourselves. We get wonderful questions like "can a car own itself?"
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Nov 19, 2015 17:28
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Yo jrod, since you're back again I wonder if you would like to comment on this apparent discrepancy:GunnerJ posted:
Why is half a century enough to reach a solid conclusion about "liberal reforms of previously authoritarian nations" but 40 years (even ignoring that many European welfare states are much older) is not enough time to render judgement on social democracy's viability?
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Nov 19, 2015 17:36
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God, that Cato model is breathtaking. I just can't stop looking at it. Top marginal income tax rate makes up 5% of the score, all other income tax rates are not considered. Standard deviation of inflation is on the list as an acknowledgment that inflation has a lot of inherent variance, and then "gently caress it, what was the last data point on the graph" is right afterward and weighted just as heavily. It just gets dumber the more I look at it. Also, I assume subsection 5(B)(iv): "Extra payments/bribes/favoritism" dings the slave states a bit. Some people being hereditary nobles who run businesses while others are literal property seems like favoritism to me. Good thing that's only 1.1% of the score, though! I would hate for that to outweigh "Freedom to own foreign currency bank accounts" (5% of total).
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Nov 19, 2015 17:38
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You guys have all the fun while I'm at work.  I'll be going into depth on jrodefeld's recent rants once I get home from work but in the meantime I will say two things. First and foremost. Challenge accepted jrod. I'm certainly willing to engage you in a written debate where you actually have to engage with the specific issue that are being thrown your way. Do you have a topic in mind? That said I will invoke my debate instructor when I say "a written debate isn't really a debate." He was never really a fan of them because it didn't allow for people to interact organically which he considered somewhat crucial to the process. I know you are super handsome and think that your good looks will shut down my ability to think, but have you considered an audio only debate? I mean it'd be in my favor too since I'd look like Nixon across from jfk, but it is a thought. If money is an issue then set up an Amazon account and I will anonymously purchase you a drat microphone. If you are still set on a written debate however, then pick a topic and I'll be happy to take you out back behind the woodshed in textual form instead.
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Nov 19, 2015 17:56
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Who What Now posted:The whole study is a huge cluster gently caress of claiming that correlation is causation. It's literally just saying "these countries have [x] which we call good, and are good countries, ergo [x] made them good countries". It implies, if not outright asserts, that it's criteria is both exhaustive and relevant to each nation's economic prosperity without actually showing it. It's a worthless study from start to finish. "Also we like [y], but these good countries do not-[y], therefore we will just redefine [y] to mean [x], and [x] made these countries good, ergo doing [y] makes countries good"
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Nov 19, 2015 18:02
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Wait wait wait hold up. Jrod knows who Alexander Ludwig is. Do you watch and enjoy Vikings? Do we have something in common 
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Nov 19, 2015 18:06
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VitalSigns posted:Bu..but the income tax is the real slavery system Also does the government force owners to vaccinate their slaves, this is important.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:07
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Now that everyone else has had the opportunity to get their licks in...jrodefeld posted:You are the one who is confused here. Yes, to a libertarian, property rights ARE human rights. For example, the principle ownership of ones body logically means that violent acts like slavery and rape are immoral because they constitute unwanted and uninvited invasions against ones physical body. Furthermore, rights such as the right to speech don't exist outside of property rights. For example, you are not permitted to come into my living room and say whatever you wish. If you enter my home, you are obligated to abide by my rules or you will have to leave. That means that I can state that you are NOT permitted to say certain things while on my property. You cannot, for example, swear at my family and be rude and obnoxious. You don't have an unlimited freedom of speech anywhere you go. On your own property, you may say anything you wish however. At any venue where you are invited and permitted to speak freely, you can disseminate any information or personal views without any problem. But you must either own the property or get permission from the owner of the property that the speech you make is permissible. That is what is meant by the statement that human rights equal property rights. Here you're simply shifting the goalposts. It's a nice attempt, but it falls flat given that you've numerous times held up property rights and economic incentives as the solutions to every social ill and rights. You have, in fact, argued that economic incentives alone would be enough to combat racism, that charity would provide adequate healthcare, and relief for poverty. So, no, I don't think that it's that loving outlandish to see your "property rights = human rights" and draw the obvious conclusion that you believe that economic liberties are the be-all and end-all of the discussion of rights in general. jrodefeld posted:However, in politics, liberty is frequently separated into two parts. People speak about economic liberties and personal liberties. To the libertarian, both are sacrosanct and ought to be respected with equal reverence. To a degree, it makes sense why people look at these activities differently. We are not only economic actors after all. We have private and personal lives. Therefore it is not the libertarian who makes a sharp distinction between economic and personal liberty but most of society. After all, it is the progressive who holds up social liberty as the thing that ought to be defended. Gay marriage, free speech, drug use, alternative lifestyles, prostitution, pornography, etc ought to be defended yet economic activity, campaign contributions, political speech, advertisements, free trade, contracts, wage rates for workers, etc ought to be heavily regulated and restricted by State law. For the conservative, precisely the opposite is true. Economic freedom is to be respected, yet personal freedom is to be infringed upon. Gay marriage should be outlawed, abortion restricted or made illegal, pornography limited or banned, drugs made illegal, prostitution made illegal, etc. Except that you have, when pressed on these issued in the past, never bothered to draw that distinction, but always, always, always jumped to a 'solution' based on economics, as I - and several other posters by this point - have pointed out. This distinction between economic and personal liberties new to you, and even more disingenuous than it first appears, because I haven't shifted the argument at all. I am still well within the realm of economics here. This horse is already past dead and well on its way to glue, but I am attacking the contradiction inherent in the fact that you're holding up Qatar and the UAE as more economically free than the US at current, when these two societies employ slavery. That you apparently cannot see how this is a contradiction in terms ( in that it violates the economic rights of the slaves, to say nothing of their human rights ), and instead seem to construe it as some sort of personal liberty question is, frankly, deeply troubling. Now, to be sure, it's an attack on their personal liberties as well, but we're talking economics here. By definition, a slave is owned and thus can't own anything themselves. They have absolutely no economic liberty. So, again, let me show you where the contradiction is, in your own words: jrodefeld posted:
The fact that - once again - you apparently cannot spot the contradiction when you claim that a Libertarian group ranking countries by economic liberty does not give a gently caress about whether those countries countenance or employ slavery is not only worrisome, it's downright vile. You're outright taking the side of the slave-owners here on economic grounds by defending the use of this study and claiming the group that made it as part of your ideology. Or, in short: VitalSigns posted:
And now go a step further: what do you think it tells me about your ideology, JRode, when you keep loving defending this poo poo? TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 18:10
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TLM3101 posted:And what do you think it tells me about your ideology when you keep loving defending this poo poo? That reminds me of something I asked in an earlier iteration of this thread but have never heard answered adequately: has Jrod ever admitted being wrong about anything, without heavy qualification? Of all the instances he's been called out for being wrong about history, health care policy, or well anything really, I can't think of an instance in which his response has been "you know what, I'm wrong about this and it does call into question my larger libertarian position about [THING]." At most, we've gotten, "well I didn't know about that aspectthough I'm still not wrongI'll have to give it some serious thought before responding" and then just trying to quietly drop it like he never brought it up to begin with.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:16
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In order to bring some levity back to the thread after all that bullshit: Based on his description of himself, and how he's come across in these threads? I present to you my impression of who JRode actually is in real life: 
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Nov 19, 2015 18:19
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If we're seriously considering debates I still want my debate on the topic of morality and ethics with Jrod. Audio-only via Google Hangouts is actually preferable, but if he wants it done written that's fine too, I'm guessing by way of some sort of editable Google doc or pastebin. I'm willing to work around you, Jrod, to make this happen, so whatever that takes I'll do it. Morality and ethics should supposedly be your strongest suit and I'm objectively one of the dumber posters in this thread, so if you have even the slightest bit of confidence in the validity of your position this should be a no-brainer for you.
Who What Now fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 19, 2015 |
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Nov 19, 2015 18:19
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Yo, jrod, which was more economically free, the Union or the Confederacy? I have a hunch as to which mises.org would pick...
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Nov 19, 2015 18:23
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Who What Now posted:If we're seriously considering debates I still want my debate on the topic of morality and ethics with Jrod. Audio-only via Google Hangouts is actually preferable, but if he wants it done written that's fine too, I'm guessing by way of some sort of editable Google doc or pastebin. I'm willing to work around you, Jrod, to make this happen, so whatever that takes I'll do it. Morality and ethics should supposedly be your strongest suit and I'm objectively one of the dumber posters in this thread, so if you have even the slightest bit of confidence in the validity of your position this should be a no-brainer for you. I called dibs you son of a bitch. I will fight you IRL. 
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Nov 19, 2015 18:29
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Caros posted:I called dibs you son of a bitch. I will fight you IRL. You wouldn't threaten to fight me IRL to my face, fucker!  Also, for reals Jrod take Caros' offer before anyone else's. I'm just offering you a babby's first debate option too. I will also fight you IRL, after everyone else who called dibs.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:32
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I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS 
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Nov 19, 2015 18:39
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jrodefeld posted:Glad to be back (I think?). Please explain to me how a country with slavery is economically free.
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Nov 19, 2015 18:40
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