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jrodefeld posted:"Property", as I am using it, refers only to rules which determine who has the right to control what scarce resource. The "rules" of Marxism thus are a type of property right. I'd strongly argue that they are incorrect and incoherent, but they are a system of property rights nonetheless. The surplus property of the more well off is more justly the property of the less well off according to the theory. We are really arguing over definitions. You are disputing my characterization of Marxism as having a theory of property rights, but we are speaking about the same thing regardless. If you don't shape up I'll sell you to Caros. (Hey Caros, wanna buy a libertarian? Ain't like he's worn out from working hard!)
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Nov 20, 2015 05:54
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Jrod you know no one except racists go from talking about slavery and racism to how affirmative action is totally unfair in like a paragraph, right? You are a racist jrod.
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Nov 20, 2015 05:57
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YF19pilot posted:Hi, jrodefeld. I'm assuming they are on the list because of their very generous corporate tax policies rather than anything WW2-era (though the rest of the EU is trying to get them to come back into line on that.)
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Nov 20, 2015 06:03
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jrodefeld posted:Your standard is absolutely absurd. Yes, I fully admit that the crime of slavery was monstrous and that my plan does not fully rectify the historical injustice. The problem is that no possible solution can rectify the historical injustice. We can't go back and un-kill hundreds of thousands of Native Americans. There is no monetary compensation or land grant that could fully compensate living Native Americans for the crimes of genocide against an entire people. Why did you read an entire post about historical American enslavement of people of African descent and its modern effects and decide to lead with the issue of the dispossession and slaughter of Native Americans? That's kind of really weird! But to be honest, I'm not really sure if I want to continue because it seems like you did not actually read and comprehend what I wrote? Not just on subject matter. I made certain to point out that the reason historical crimes of this magnitude matter is because they affected the way history unfolded to the modern day, screwing some people over and unjustly benefiting others. "Fully compensating" would be great but is not actually at issue since I am not claiming to have a scheme for full compensation. I am claiming that your standard does not even begin to offer any degree of meaningful compensation. The case of Native American dispossession is actually much clearer, in some ways, than that of reparations for slavery because there are coherent native nations that exist to this day, sequestered onto marginal lands. Here there needs to be no talk of un-killing anyone. Just dealing with the issue of Indian reservations - alleviating conditions, providing funding for infrastructure, whatever - would do a world of good and has jack poo poo all to do with individuals of native descent trying to sue the specific owners of specific plots of land. (Edit: I don't want to suggest, though, that dealing with broken promises in the forms of deeds, treaties, documented transfers, etc. is not important, that where they exist, nothing needs to be done. Another reason this is a "clearer-cut" case is that there are often documents of these crooked deals. My understanding is that when native groups can document that they are owed some holding in land they can successfully pursue their claim. However these claims aren't typically resolved by just kicking the current occupants off, but rather through some form of financial restitution mediated by courts and governments. You know, a sane solution that minimally harms the indirect unwitting beneficiaries of a historical injustice while repaying its victims, something that it's cool to have a tax-levying state to enable. I simply don't think this is the only mechanism by which restitution for native dispossession can or should be achieved.) This should matter to you whether you believe in things like institutional racism or not because you have the high burden of trying to convince people that your ideology makes sense and is worth putting into practice. If one of your ethical starting points - homesteading theory - is ahistorical garbage that does not explain actually existing patterns of property holdings, because these actual patterns are based on a history of theft, fraud, and conquest that has resulted in some modern people being unfairly deprived and oppressed while others are unfairly enriched and empowered, then the fairness of instituting the kinds of economic policies you prefer is contingent on correcting this historical unfairness. If you say that this is impossible, and you are unwilling to even make a partial go at it except in as much as the modern dispossessed can show a deed in court, well... that's a problem for your ideology, not mine. You are simply admitting to its inadequacies. quote:That is true. However, the reasonable hope is that if we start establishing and enforcing a universal standard of just property rights, while redistributing stolen property to its more rightful owner wherever and whenever it can be proven through genealogical testing and historical inquiry, past atrocities can and will become less important as time goes on. Yeah, no, sorry but an argument from your "hopes" is not really compelling since I have no reason to give the benefit of the doubt to a standard that will just happen to benefit the people who are already doing the best way more than anyone else. Past atrocities will become less important when their modern ongoing damage is repaired. This will not happen according to your scheme, as you admit. If the main beneficiaries of your proposed system also benefit, indirectly or directly, from the fruits of these injustices, then I have no "hope" that things will just work themselves out nicely as time ticks on from the Libertarian Year 0. quote:Your standard will only necessitate and exacerbate further injustice by taking money from people who had nothing to do with slavery and giving it to people whose ancestors were not enslaved. The current conditions of various peoples are based on MANY different factors. Blacks were not the only ones who suffered injustice. Jews were subject to terrible treatment and discrimination, as were the Irish, as were the Japanese. I am not claiming that the degree of past injustice for these groups were the equal of American blacks who were enslaved, but Jewish Americans and Japanese Americans have excelled despite these past injustices and now have average incomes and education levels that far exceed average whites who never had a history of suffering from such discrimination. There is a lot more to the problems facing contemporary black America than the history of slavery and white racism. What the gently caress is this? I was expecting something concrete about how my standard would just result in more injustice and then you started going off about a bunch of "but what about these guys, they did OK??" It is possible that different forms of racial injustice have different histories and played out in different ways, but you're kind of cracked if you think that there's no anti-Jewish or anti-Asian racism in need of redress. Is there some reason why you do not want to stick to the topic at hand, i.e., reparations for slavery? Does the fact that not all the problems facing black Americans stem from the legacy of slavery mean that we don't have to deal with that legacy? quote:You made the case that blacks whose ancestors were NOT enslaved still suffer from the legacy of slavery in less direct ways and thus deserve reparations and property transfers from other, presumably white, Americans. Hey, so I'm actually just going to peace out of putting any effort into this post right here because you're wasting my loving time. Go back and read my post more carefully. You do not have to "presume" anything about what I "made a case" for, because I made my case clearly and it clearly is not what you're characterizing it as. Having skimmed the rest of your post, I'll say that your shilling for another libertarian makes me feel good about my decision. But I will return your favor of suggesting reading for me by suggesting that you read a case for reparations that shows how the legacy of slavery continues to the modern day better than I ever could: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 06:09
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Caros posted:Better yet stop talking about race. For a person who doesn't like talking about race that seems to be all you do these days. Well, in fairness, he's replying to me and I brought institutional racism up.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:10
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GunnerJ posted:Well, in fairness, he's replying to me and I brought institutional racism up. Yeah, but he ignores substantive posts all the time, why not the one that is a proven huge loving problem area for him on a topic he has repeatedly insisted he doesn't want to discuss? Seriously though his response to you is very nearly peak jrode.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:25
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paragon1 posted:Yeah, but he ignores substantive posts all the time, why not the one that is a proven huge loving problem area for him on a topic he has repeatedly insisted he doesn't want to discuss? Huh, good point. So it looks like if you want jrod to reply to you, then you just need to inject the words "and black people have it tough because of racism" somewhere in your post.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:31
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The implication or outrights statement that libertarianism as a whole and certain libertarian thinkers are in some way racist, intolerant, class-biased, uncaring, pedophiles, etc. is generally the way to go, yeah. I feel like he's mostly gotten wise to the really obvious attempts though, and he only half read parts of yours, assumed he knew the rest, and then used it as an opportunity to spew more of his proselytizing drivel while looking like he was addressing something substantive. For what it's worth I thought yours was A Real Good Post.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:35
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I have to admit I thought that jrod having been called out on saying that literal slave states are more free and then vanishing for months was the hardest he could get owned. Then him showing up again proved me wrong.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:41
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spoon0042 posted:My ancestors Walter Block (Water Capitalism: The Case for Privatizing Oceans, Rivers, Lakes, and Aquifers) rejects the ad coelum theory of land ownership (in which a farmer owns a "pizza slice" of land extending down the core of the Earth, and a similar chunk of sky). If you discover an oil reservoir under your turnip farm, someone else could fairly extract all of the oil by slant-drilling without paying you a dime ... so long as their wellhead begins pumping before you can build one of your own. If they gently caress up the technical details and create a bunch of sinkholes (or poison the groundwater, or create minor earthquakes) then they're liable for any damages to your farm - assuming that you can prove it (at your own expense, of course). jrodefeld posted:redistributing stolen property to its more rightful owner wherever and whenever it can be proven through genealogical testing and historical inquiry jrodefeld posted:past property theft ought to be recompensed wherever it can be proven. You're operating under a voluntarist framework, so presumably the present owner of an estate (or a slavery-derived hereditary fortune) would need to weigh the evidence for himself and consent to redistribution. If so, what force could compel him to act in good faith? What stops him from arbitrarily dismissing any claim and thereby denying the sacred Galt-given  PROPERTY RIGHTS of a claimant?Aloysius Peitschmann posted:Wow, that's some great evidence! I especially liked the mDNA which you managed to recover - at fantastic expense, no doubt - from partial skeletal remains. And, of course, the original bills of sale bearing the names of your ancestors and the signature of my ancestor. You've got me 98% convinced. Unfortunately, there's still a tiny smidgen of uncertainty - one niggling quantum of doubt in my mind. I cannot, in good conscience, hand over my title to someone who might not be the rightful inheritor. After all... you might clumsily mismanage the sudden windfall, spending it all on lotto tickets, and thus leave nothing for the true heir who could appear at any moment.
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Nov 20, 2015 07:28
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YF19pilot posted:4. Switzerland - A country that built it's wealth off of being the go-to mercenaries for several centuries. I'm not familiar with it's social policies outside of universal conscription and being very anal about speed limits. There's a lot of environmental protection laws, too, and they're almost always strictly enforced.
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Nov 20, 2015 07:47
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Pththya-lyi posted:There's a lot of environmental protection laws, too, and they're almost always strictly enforced. Well, to be fair, strict enforcement of environmental regulations seems to be a central tenant of Libertarianism, at least according to jrode. StandardVC10 posted:I'm assuming they are on the list because of their very generous corporate tax policies rather than anything WW2-era (though the rest of the EU is trying to get them to come back into line on that.) Now that you mention it, makes sense. I know that most of the low cost EU air carriers tend to register their aircraft in Ireland. CovfefeCatCafe fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 08:17
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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. No, that's not true. Nozick isn't my favorite but I don't disavow minarchists from the libertarian movement. I'm a big tent advocate, within reason. I would consider the act of selling out to the DC establishment or being heavily funded or influenced by the Koch brothers to be a more egregious sin than advocating a limited State or being a strict Constitutionalist. I supported Ron Paul for president in 2008 and 2012 even though he is not an anarchist. I support limiting coercion as much as possible. If you support the night watchman limited State, then let's work to roll back State authority until it resides within those limits. Then we might argue over whether to go further into anarchy or not. But those fights are not very practically relevant. They are interesting as a theoretical exercise, but we needn't excommunicate people from the movement because they believe in the minimal State. Nozick has done some good work and absolutely was a good libertarian, even with his deviations from what I consider to be the consistent case for liberty.
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Nov 20, 2015 08:28
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jrodefeld posted:No, that's not true. Nozick isn't my favorite but I don't disavow minarchists from the libertarian movement. I'm a big tent advocate, within reason. I would consider the act of selling out to the DC establishment or being heavily funded or influenced by the Koch brothers to be a more egregious sin than advocating a limited State or being a strict Constitutionalist. I supported Ron Paul for president in 2008 and 2012 even though he is not an anarchist. I support limiting coercion as much as possible. If you support the night watchman limited State, then let's work to roll back State authority until it resides within those limits. Then we might argue over whether to go further into anarchy or not. But those fights are not very practically relevant. They are interesting as a theoretical exercise, but we needn't excommunicate people from the movement because they believe in the minimal State. How is Walter Block's defense of slavery incompatible with libertarianism as a whole?
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Nov 20, 2015 08:31
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Effectronica posted:How is Walter Block's defense of slavery incompatible with libertarianism as a whole? The Big Tent of liberty has room for slavery, but not for a 39.6% top income tax rate you fascist.
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Nov 20, 2015 08:40
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Caros posted:You guys have all the fun while I'm at work. Let's start with a written debate and see how it goes from there. A topic? Well, let's first figure out the logistics of how the debate would procede. There are a million relevant topics we could discuss related to libertarianism and I'm sure regardless of the formal topic we decide upon, numerous other issues will no doubt intrude. Would we debate on this forum? I'm thinking that we set up a specific thread where we agree that only you and I will post. Maybe we set up a second thread where others can comment on our ongoing debate. Perhaps a moderator would be willing to ban people who intrude onto our thread to keep the rules established. This is just a thought. I'd have to carve out enough time to dedicate to a debate as well but that shouldn't be too hard since I'll certainly have some free time this holiday season. There should be a reasonable time limit on the debate also. Since I have to sleep and will have some obligations during the day, something like a three day time limit seems reasonable to me. That way we can both say what we have to say but there is a finite limit. You play online role playing games so you'll probably appreciate this analogy. The reason I've never been able to get into those kinds of games is that I know there is always someone out there with less of a life than me who is willing to spend more time at the game, getting more experienced, more skilled and thus able to take advantage through sheer force of repetition and time invested. That is sometimes how I feel posting on these message boards. There are members on these forums who will end up spending a whole lot more time here than I am able to. In an open-ended debate, the poster who merely posts the most will feel as though they have won because the other person can't dedicate the same investment of time and therefore is not able to reply to each and ever post, read every link and source and so forth. So a hard time limit is a necessity to alleviate this problem. Anyway, I'm sure we'll talk more about this in the coming days.
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Nov 20, 2015 08:50
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Oh a written debate. Oh this is sure going to be different than any of the word salad since 2012, watch.
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Nov 20, 2015 08:54
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jrodefeld posted:Let's start with a written debate and see how it goes from there. A topic? Well, let's first figure out the logistics of how the debate would procede. There are a million relevant topics we could discuss related to libertarianism and I'm sure regardless of the formal topic we decide upon, numerous other issues will no doubt intrude. Would we debate on this forum? I'm thinking that we set up a specific thread where we agree that only you and I will post. Maybe we set up a second thread where others can comment on our ongoing debate. Perhaps a moderator would be willing to ban people who intrude onto our thread to keep the rules established. This is just a thought. Five rounds. 1500 words maximum for the initial post, 1000 for rebuttals and responses. You will be responsible for affirming, your opponent for negating. Going more than 50 words over the word limit counts as a concession of the debate. Edit: Also, the bounds of the debate are to be established in the initial posts, and exceeding those bounds constitutes a concession of the debate as well. With those conditions and the three-day time limit, I would gladly debate the proposition, "The Libertarian notions of 'the non-aggression principle' and 'coercion' are internally consistent and coherent notions." provided that a suitable definition of those terms that you will accept is available. I am sure Caros or other people would be willing to do so with other topics on similar terms. Effectronica fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 09:12
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Caros posted:If it makes you feel better just keep in mind that I just really like arguing. I was on the Canadian world high school debate team for three years running solely because I really like winning arguments, even though I was actually diametrically opposed to many of the things I argued in favor of (the death penalty for example). If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a little more about your personal story regarding libertarianism. From what I have ascertained from our past discussions you were once a dedicated libertarian who was familiar with all the common literature and arguments. The evolution in your thinking started when your friend became very ill and was unable to afford the treatment that could have cured her (my recollection is that your friend was female). From this undoubtedly traumatic event, you reassessed your position and rejected libertarianism. But this really doesn't account for the vitriol and hatred you have of libertarianism. At most, this event might make you reconsider a specific aspect of your beliefs, in particular that there is indeed a role for government policy in establishing some sort of social safety net that could have effectively helped your friend get the health treatment she needed. But this does nothing to undermine the many other libertarian arguments with which you are no doubt familiar. There must be more to the story. Have you ever had any traumatic real-life experiences with libertarians? A psychotic ex-girlfriend who happened to be a libertarian? An encounter with cultish Ayn Rand followers? I'm just trying to understand your transition from a person who was an informed libertarian to one who now holds a "particular loathing for libertarianism". It might be worth holding a particular loathing for Communism, but this hatred for an ideology that is based on opposing aggression seems excessive. If anything, your particular experience ought to give you a certain amount of sympathy for people who still hold these views, such as myself. If I was a leftist, which I was and probably still would be had I not been persuaded by Harry Browne's writings and Ron Paul's presidential campaign in 2007 and subsequently through reading many of the important books written on the subject, I would nonetheless still appreciate the work of certain libertarian authors and commentators. Do you have a contemporary libertarian author or commentator that you still admire or appreciate, even though you disagree on plenty of important issues? I would think that you would appreciate Scott Horton and his daily radio show or the people who run Antiwar.com since they are narrowly focused on opposing war and police brutality. They publish probably more leftist commentators than even libertarian ones. I would assume that you might still have an appreciation for left-libertarians like Roderick Long and Gary Chartier. Maybe you haven't been made aware of the breadth of contemporary libertarian thought? Anyway, I could easily list the leftist reporters and commentators that I most admire. I admire Glenn Greenwald, Ralph Nader and Jeremy Scahill to name only a couple. Though I have issues with their economics, Cornel West and Chris Hedges. The vitriol that many of you show towards libertarians is more than a little concerning. We are just individuals who are doing our best to discover a consistent moral and intellectual framework with which to establish civil society and allow human flourishing. If you stay within your own insulated bubble it becomes easy to demonize people who think different from you and forget our shared humanity.
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Nov 20, 2015 09:30
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jrodefeld posted:If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a little more about your personal story regarding libertarianism. From what I have ascertained from our past discussions you were once a dedicated libertarian who was familiar with all the common literature and arguments. The evolution in your thinking started when your friend became very ill and was unable to afford the treatment that could have cured her (my recollection is that your friend was female). From this undoubtedly traumatic event, you reassessed your position and rejected libertarianism. But this really doesn't account for the vitriol and hatred you have of libertarianism. At most, this event might make you reconsider a specific aspect of your beliefs, in particular that there is indeed a role for government policy in establishing some sort of social safety net that could have effectively helped your friend get the health treatment she needed. But this does nothing to undermine the many other libertarian arguments with which you are no doubt familiar. There must be more to the story. "The vitriol that many of you show towards Nazis is more than a little concerning. We are just individuals who are doing our best to discover a consistent moral and intellectual framework with which to establish civil society and allow human flourishing. If you stay within your own insulated bubble it becomes easy to demonize people who think different from you and forget our shared humanity." Your constant attempts to come off as jus' folks without responding to any critique on moral grounds beyond shaking your head and going "Nuh-UH!" are more than a little disconcerting and disturbing.
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Nov 20, 2015 09:34
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DrProsek posted:Jrod, I want you to answer a simple question: what is the greater evil, property tax or slavery? Which one hurts a nation's economic freedom more? It's hard to believe this is even a serious question, but I'll answer nonetheless. Slavery is one of the most egregious violations of the non-aggression principle possible and is indeed a worse act than a property tax. Many, many times worse. However, both exist on a continuum and are not completely unrelated. There was a notable political theorist whose name escapes me at the moment. Nonetheless he posed the question "when does a slave cease being a slave?" Let's suppose a person owns a person and forces him to work in the cotton fields seven days a week and whips and beats him daily. Clearly the person is a slave. But let's suppose he stops beating him every day and only beats him on the weekends. Not only that, but he doesn't make him work seven days a week but only makes him work five days a week. Is he still a slave? Obviously he is. The problem with slavery is that the person being enslaved is being forced by threat of violence to associate with his or her "master" against his or her will. If the slave master reduces the slaves work output to only three days a week and gives the slave four days off, is he still a slave? The answer of course is yes. Now, suppose the slave master says "okay, you will not be forced to work on my plantation at all, but I will allow you to move out into the world and do what you wish. However, you will be forced through threat of violence to send me half of everything you earn as a tribute." While this is no doubt preferable to being forced to work in the cotton fields seven days a week and beaten every day, the real fundamental issue is being avoided. The fundamental issue which separates a slave from a non-slave is that a free person is one who has total self-ownership and whose associations with others are entirely voluntary. While every move towards being less of a slave is preferable, the fundamental issue is being avoided. That is why an income tax, while absolutely and unequivocally far less egregious than chattel slavery, is still a form of slavery because the recipient of this income tax is being forced against his or her will to pay a percentage of his or her income under threat of violence and kidnapping (throwing you in jail if you refuse). The only time when a person is completely free is if their self ownership is respected and there are no lawful, unwanted assaults permitted against them. I hope that is clear.
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Nov 20, 2015 09:46
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Yes my political philosophy whole-heartedly approves of your friend dying of a treatable disease because she didn't bootstrap herself into millions of dollars, after all it's more important that Mitt Romney buy a yacht to carry his smaller yacht. But I don't understand your disagreement with this philosophy, is it perhaps and irrational reaction to a Randian ex-lover who did you wrong, which you've generalized into an irrational emotional loathing for all Libertarians, America, and apple pie? It just doesn't make sense to loathe a philosophy, except for my loathing of communism which is totally justified.
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Nov 20, 2015 09:48
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jrodefeld posted:It's hard to believe this is even a serious question, but I'll answer nonetheless. Slavery is one of the most egregious violations of the non-aggression principle possible and is indeed a worse act than a property tax. Many, many times worse. However, both exist on a continuum and are not completely unrelated. If it cannot be bought or sold, the self cannot be owned. Libertarianism must allow slavery if the self can be owned.
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Nov 20, 2015 09:57
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Dr Pepper posted:I have to admit I thought that jrod having been called out on saying that literal slave states are more free and then vanishing for months was the hardest he could get owned. Self ownership? More like Self OWNAGESHIP! 
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Nov 20, 2015 10:05
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GunnerJ posted:Alternately, it's what anyone familiar with the words of Walter Block might say: And I don't think Walter Block makes a very persuasive case at all. But this has absolutely nothing to do with libertarian objection to slavery. Slavery is a historical phenomenon (which unfortunately persists to the present day in certain parts of the world) that all decent people oppose. Walter is describing a completely theoretical contractual sort of slavery that has never actually existed anywhere. So to cite Walter Block and then infer that libertarians are not sufficiently opposed to actual slavery, i.e. the sort that has actually historically occurred and continues to occur where people are kidnapped against their will, beaten and killed if they disobey is disingenuous in the extreme. For the record, I support Murray Rothbard's opinion that voluntary slavery is an impossibility. In "The Ethics of Liberty", Rothbard writes: quote:A man can alienate his labor service, but he cannot sell the capitalized future value of that service. In short, he cannot, in nature, sell himself into slavery and have this sale enforced—for this would mean that his future will over his own person was being surrendered in advance. In short, a man can naturally expend his labor currently for someone else’s benefit, but he cannot transfer himself, even if he wished, into another man’s permanent capital good. For he cannot rid himself of his own will, which may change in future years and repudiate the current arrangement. The concept of “voluntary slavery” is indeed a contradictory one, for so long as a laborer remains totally subservient to his master’s will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary; whereas, if he later changed his mind and the master enforced his slavery by violence, the slavery would not then be voluntary. I really think that this attempt at claiming libertarianism is somehow not opposed to slavery or indifferent to the issue is incredibly dishonest. You are not arguing in good faith. Even Walter Block's theoretical future "voluntary" slavery system is not supported by almost any other libertarian and, more importantly, is completely distinct from any actually existing phenomenon.
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Nov 20, 2015 10:07
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jrodefeld posted:It's hard to believe this is even a serious question, but I'll answer nonetheless. Slavery is one of the most egregious violations of the non-aggression principle possible and is indeed a worse act than a property tax. Many, many times worse. However, both exist on a continuum and are not completely unrelated. In which a pasty-white, middleclass simpleton manages to equate himself to a slave on an antebellum plantation through mental gymnastics. Jesus loving christ, Candie.
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Nov 20, 2015 10:08
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jrodefeld posted:And I don't think Walter Block makes a very persuasive case at all. But this has absolutely nothing to do with libertarian objection to slavery. Slavery is a historical phenomenon (which unfortunately persists to the present day in certain parts of the world) that all decent people oppose. Walter is describing a completely theoretical contractual sort of slavery that has never actually existed anywhere. So to cite Walter Block and then infer that libertarians are not sufficiently opposed to actual slavery, i.e. the sort that has actually historically occurred and continues to occur where people are kidnapped against their will, beaten and killed if they disobey is disingenuous in the extreme. On the contrary, voluntary slavery was practiced in Rome, in the various empires of Mesopotamia prior to the Persian Empire, and is part of Chinese legendary tradition. It may have also been practiced in tribal and monarchical Israel and Judah. Edit: this is just off the top of my head.
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Nov 20, 2015 10:13
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jrodefeld posted:What you are doing is spreading a gross caricature of libertarianism that says more about your own prejudices than it does about actual libertarian thought. Libertarians care more about low taxes than slavery? Really? I guess we can forget about all the classical liberal abolitionist writings and the statements that repeatedly say that slavery is the most egregious violation of human liberty. This sounds like something progressives make up about libertarians while snuggled in their own tight-knit bubble of self-reinforcing ideologies. The sort of thing people who have never even spoken to a libertarian, let alone having read a single influential libertarian treatise, would make up. You HAVE been speaking to a libertarian and I can assume you've read a few things about libertarianism so you don't have the excuse of ignorance to fall back on. Look I can understand that you didn't know anything about the UAE or Qatar before posting that list and it was a mistake on your part. But the Cato Institute certainly does know about their legalized slavery and ranked the UAE #5 in economic freedom anyway. The Cato Institute does not care about slavery. They do. not. care. And we don't even have to make suppositions about it: just look how Cato ranks the various factors.
Take a look at how they weight these things. The closest explicit reference to slavery is conscription (which they define as military conscription later on), which is 1.1% of the total ranking. Meanwhile top income tax rate is 5% and tariffs are 5%. Together just those two taxes make up 10% of the total ranking, whereas whether the government impresses you into military service at gunpoint and forces you to kill or be killed is a measly 1.1% of the total. Cato thinks tariffs and income tax are ten times as important as military conscription when it comes to economic freedom. The freedom of businesses to keep as much money as possible is more important that your individual economic freedom to choose what to do with your body and your very life.And there's nothing for private slavery, nothing. At best you can fit it under 2f, legal enforcement of contracts for those cases when your company refuses to release you after your term ends, and that's only 2.2% of the total. Whether the legal system will let the company force you to work past your contract is barely one-fifth as important to Cato as income taxes and tariffs. But contract enforcement depends on what is legal in the first place: all sorts of abuse is perfectly legal. Your employer keeps your passport and can dictate to employees what bank accounts they may own, where they may live, what they may do, and not only does contract enforcement protect that, but countries get extra freedom points for having no labor laws to prevent such abuses. It's darkly amusing that whether the government lets you own foreign currency bank accounts is a 5% chunk of the entire rating, but whether it's legal for a company to hold your passport hostage and control what bank accounts you can have isn't even important (actually countries are rewarded for allowing this since that falls under 5b, labor regulation). poo poo like this is why the shine started wearing off of libertarianism for me the more I got beyond the lip service to freedom and dignity and into what the Libertarian party and Libertarian think tanks like Cato actually support and where their priorities actually lie.
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Nov 20, 2015 10:24
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TLM3101 posted:In which a pasty-white, middleclass simpleton manages to equate himself to a slave on an antebellum plantation through mental gymnastics. Ahahaha, the Libertarian argument for taxes = slavery is just a redressed Ship of Theseus. How far does this slippery slope from chattel slavery on down go jrod, I guess being required to drive on the right and not the left is slavery too, after all we can increment down from "controlling my movement all the time" to "controlling my movement at certain areas when I want to do certain things" can't we.
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Nov 20, 2015 10:33
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VitalSigns posted:Ahahaha, the Libertarian argument for taxes = slavery is just a redressed Ship of Theseus. How far does this slippery slope from chattel slavery on down go jrod, I guess being required to drive on the right and not the left is slavery too, after all we can increment down from "controlling my movement all the time" to "controlling my movement at certain areas when I want to do certain things" can't we. Do you know, I actually felt bad for a second when I used that image? And then he launched into that comparison. At this point, I'm just waiting for JRode to start into a lecture on how phrenology proves that the negroes are totally different from and inferior to the white man. My comparison may actually have been unfair to Candie!
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Nov 20, 2015 11:06
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TLM3101 posted:Do you know, I actually felt bad for a second when I used that image? And then he launched into that comparison. At this point, I'm just waiting for JRode to start into a lecture on how phrenology proves that the negroes are totally different from and inferior to the white man. My comparison may actually have been unfair to Candie! Hey Rodefeld, since you're not going to bring in my laundry or anything useful: I heard a pithy quote once saying that "libertarians are anarchists that want police protection from their slaves." This seems pretty valid - in that it seems like this is a structure designed to make it so that people with property (mostly, those who have it now) get to have more, and be specifically protected, on a presumably permanent basis, from those who don't. So what I suppose I'd ask here is: As a non-property-haver, what (other than some support for things like legalizing/decriminalizing drugs etc.) does libertarian thought offer me? What benefit will accrue to me? Seems like I'd be acting in my rational self-interest to support socialist policies which will bring me some degree of wealth/property as opposed to casino tickets to a rigged game.
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Nov 20, 2015 11:37
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Oh also I want to note that UAE got a perfect 10 on "Hiring Regulations and Minimum Wage": allowing slavery actually guarantees a perfect score on that section because it means there's no minimum wage. You can be held to forced labor against your wil and Cato just wants to make sure the company doing it isn't legally held to any minimum standards of humane treatment.
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Nov 20, 2015 12:25
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jrodefeld posted:That is why an income tax, while absolutely and unequivocally far less egregious than chattel slavery, is still a form of slavery because the recipient of this income tax is being forced against his or her will to pay a percentage of his or her income under threat of violence and kidnapping (throwing you in jail if you refuse). The only time when a person is completely free is if their self ownership is respected and there are no lawful, unwanted assaults permitted against them. So, you would say that the only real form of coercion is the threat of overt violence, then? "Work for me or you will starve and/or be homeless" is A-okay while "Work for me or I will torture or kill you" is not? You might see why libertarian ethics are not particularly compelling to people who have privations in the real world, then. And I think you still spout self-ownership like it's not an extremely loaded word.
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Nov 20, 2015 13:10
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You can leave the country and denounce your citizenship of your own volition at any time. And yet you have not, ergo you are making a voluntary choice to pay taxes and thus an income tax cannot by your own definition be a form of slavery. After all, if it isn't slavery if you can quit your job it cannot be slavery if you can quit the country.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:13
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jrodefeld posted:It's hard to believe this is even a serious question, but I'll answer nonetheless. Slavery is one of the most egregious violations of the non-aggression principle possible and is indeed a worse act than a property tax. Many, many times worse. However, both exist on a continuum and are not completely unrelated. This is outrageous.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:19
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Igiari posted:This is outrageous. But compared to his "Libertarian Concentration Camp Guard" analogy, it's only like a 4/10.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:23
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The type of slavery advocated by Block and Nozick are easily comparable to the type of slavery found in UAE and Qatar, as well as the brick kilns of Pakistan, sex trade in SE Asia, etc.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:26
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jrodefeld posted:Slavery is one of the most egregious violations of the non-aggression principle possible and is indeed a worse act than a property tax. quote:That is why an income tax, while absolutely and unequivocally far less egregious than chattel slavery, is still a form of slavery because the recipient of this income tax is being forced against his or her will to pay a percentage of his or her income under threat of violence and kidnapping (throwing you in jail if you refuse). Why is income tax slavery but not property tax? Or if property tax is slavery, how can it be less egregious than slavery if it is itself slavery?
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Nov 20, 2015 14:31
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VitalSigns posted:Look I can understand that you didn't know anything about the UAE or Qatar before posting that list and it was a mistake on your part. But the Cato Institute certainly does know about their legalized slavery and ranked the UAE #5 in economic freedom anyway. The Cato Institute does not care about slavery. They do. not. care. What blows my mind is that Judicial Independence is only 2.2%. Having good courts is incredibly important to business. If they aren't impartial and independent, with real power, then you get into bribery bidding wars with suitors to try to get a favorable opinion, which massively increases costs. It also means the company with more money for bribing would usually win, not the side with the most merit. You can't form long-term strategy if you don't have protection from some random, rich rear end in a top hat frivolously suing you and bribing the judge to make you pay your profits to the claimant or shut down your innovative new business. If Libertarians actually believed in voluntary contracts, they would enforce a judicial system that is truly impartial and fair. Otherwise, those voluntary contracts end up being a farce because there is nothing backing it up. So, what we are left with is, once again, that Libertarian thinkers are just another brand of FYGM rich assholes trying to screw over everyone else.
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Nov 20, 2015 14:34
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Who What Now posted:You can leave the country and denounce your citizenship of your own volition at any time. And yet you have not, ergo you are making a voluntary choice to pay taxes and thus an income tax cannot by your own definition be a form of slavery. After all, if it isn't slavery if you can quit your job it cannot be slavery if you can quit the country. Yeah we've tried this argument before, and it turns out that even though no one is pointing a gun at his head forcing him to stay, he magically discovers that in this instance and this instance alone, the financial and practical barriers to doing so amount to coercion because the choice is illusory if the other option is not actually realizable for most people. However if you're born into a company town and you don't want to die young of coal miner's lung like your old man, but you can't afford transportation out when every day your elderly ma's debt to the company commissary grows larger, well clearly staying and working yourself to an early grave is a free choice you're making according to your rational enlightened self-interest or you wouldn't be doing it! 
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Nov 20, 2015 14:48
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