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jrodefeld posted:European nations are very in debt and are all financed through inflationary paper currencies. By what standards exactly is the socialized healthcare in Europe the best on the planet? Inevitably, the State must ration care under a socialized system. Our Corporate Fascist medicine in the United States is terrible as well but a common occurrence in Canada an Europe is to have people placed on waiting lists for a year or more for a common medical procedure. There are shortages and plenty of problems. Don't kid yourself. I have literally never had to wait a year for a necessary medical procedure. Hell, I can decide to go to the GP and AT MOST have to wait until the next day. Universal healthcare is best in the planet on a variety of metrics, including cost per person, fatal disease survival rates/times and user satisfaction. jrodefeld posted:Fifty to sixty years ago, the United States had the best healthcare on the planet and it was not even close. The best healthcare system in the world on every metric was and remains the British National Health Service. Your statement is based on a false premise, and so is the rest of your argument.
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Aug 9, 2014 11:44
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Waaaah the Christians are out to get me
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jrodefeld posted:As for more concrete examples of property use that might block a view, or lower property value but not directly use aggression against the property of another, I would say that those property owners are within their rights. It might be selfish and inconsiderate to use your property in certain ways. So it's a question of degree, then? Not an objective universal truth? By what metric is building something large enough to simply spitefully block the sun conceptually different from lowering someone's property values, devaluing the labour they have mixed with the land and, by extension, violating their property? jrodefeld posted:But I would suggest that people use peaceful means to deal with it. I think that voluntary communities that develop in the libertarian society could and would have certain standards that people would agree to when they move in. Sort of a voluntary building code. There is no reason why a peaceful solution cannot be devised to deal with these inconveniences. And if someone bought land and didn't voluntarily decide to abide by the building code? What then? jrodefeld posted:I don't accept your characterization. I think you are attributing racist motivations to people who are not racist. I support nullification and secession because I believe in decentralization and in weakening the State. I think the State has been especially vicious to minorities and they would stand to benefit most from its abolition. Stating this does not make it true. jrodefeld posted:I don't accept moral relativism. There are certain ways that humans interact that can be considered "moral" and certain ways that are "immoral". Except that you have, in this very post, stated that what constitutes an act of aggression is relative, and does not have an objective definition. jrodefeld posted:No, property is not protected by initiating violence. It is protected by the use of defensive violence if necessary. If you are trespassing on my land and you don't pose any direct threat to me or my property (i.e. you are not attempting to steal anything) I can't just shoot you. I can't come up to you and start punching you in the face. I can ask you to leave. If you refuse to leave then I can have you physically removed by calling the police. If I use excessive force against someone who was absent-mindedly wandering across my property, then I become the aggressor and he can press charges against me. Defensive violence has to be proportional. So wait, property isn't simply what you have "mixed your labour with," it's what you are able to defend? Can you actually keep your own arguments straight before attempting to critique the position of others?
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Aug 9, 2014 12:36
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jrodefeld posted:This is incoherent. It is not the green pieces of paper that is being stolen by the State, but it is the actual labor of the citizen. The average upper middle class citizen works four to five months to pay their accumulated State, local and Federal taxes. What is being stolen is all the goods and services that these abstract symbols called "money" would have purchased had they not been expropriated by the IRS. Except those goods and services are only even being produced because of the system maintained by the state to ensure that people have a market for those goods. You don't seem to realise that markets are not natural, and that markets involving a universally-accepted store of value that ensures all goods are ultimately fungible are an especially artificial construct. jrodefeld posted:Speaking about "society" in the way that you do is just ridiculous. I give back to society every time I voluntarily exchange goods for money at the grocery store. I am paying the farmers for their effort to grow food and ship it to the store shelves. I pay for each service that other entrepreneurs provide in the division of labor whenever I pay for anything. And you pay them with a universally-accepted, interchangeable denotation of value that only exists because of a central authority. The States had a period of time without a centralised currency, when private banks would issue their own currencies that would change region-to-region. It was terrible for business.
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Aug 9, 2014 12:39
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jrodefeld posted:Rothbard was responding to calls from liberal intellectuals at the time who were advocating that we cut off all economic trade with Apartheid nations. Rothbard is saying that that would accomplish very little and would make conditions even worse for blacks in those countries. The Apartheid system can and should be overturned through violent revolt. But that doesn't mean that the United States military has to take it upon themselves to commit the violence. You're aware that apartheid ended, right You're aware that apartheid ended in no small part because of international action sanctioning South Africa economically and politically for its actions, right I guess I at least can't complain that you skipped my posts since at least it means you aren't moving through the thread one quoted post a day
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Aug 10, 2014 01:30
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jrodefeld posted:The title of that article "Vacant Houses Outnumber Homeless People in U.S." tells you something doesn't it? It might surprise you, but there is a libertarian argument to be made that homeless people should squat in these unused homes that are sitting vacant. The reason is simple. The housing bubble was not a market phenomenon. The Federal Reserve and government policy created an over-investment in housing, far exceeding market demand. Plus the encouragement by the State for lenders to make risky loans and all the funneling of expropriated taxpayer money into this sector of the economy combine to render the legitimacy of the property titles to these homes claimed by the Banks rather suspect. This sure is a lot of words without a shred of anything resembling fact or reason. You cannot justify your intellectually stunted beliefs with what are effectively religious arguments about the market.
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Aug 10, 2014 09:29
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First of all:jrodefeld posted:the market (the people) No. Markets are not even vaguely a representation of what is valued by society. They are a representation of what is valued by those who have money, which 99 times out of 100 is "things that make me more money." jrodefeld posted:In fact the market economy harnesses greed in a way where the greedy are forced to serve the needs of the consumers through competing for voluntarily paying customers. No, it doesn't. jrodefeld posted:A libertarian monetary policy would be one where there is free competition and the market (the people) choose which currency best maintains its value and serves their needs for exchange and as a store of value. The US tried this. It was awful. It's why the US now has a central bank. jrodefeld posted:The business cycle (booms and busts) come about through manipulation of the interest rates by a central bank and expansion of credit with a fiat currency. No it doesn't. Booms and busts are a fundamental component of market economies of any form. jrodefeld posted:A central bank is a government granted monopoly on the issuance of currency. Without such a monopoly, the endless booms and busts would no longer exist. Yes they would, and far more harshly. jrodefeld posted:Since people will be transacting in different currencies and people are free to switch to a different medium of exchange the minute one currency begins to lose its value, this would prevent unnatural bubble formation. The market tends towards equilibrium and slow, steady growth over time. No, it won't, and no, it doesn't. jrodefeld posted:Without constant currency devaluation, people will feel more comfortable actually saving money. No, they won't. jrodefeld posted:This store of savings are what fuels investment on the market. No, it isn't. jrodefeld posted:When economic growth is based on debt, that means it is unsustainable and will inevitably crash down the road. This I agree with. You've said nothing about why your utopia forbids the issuance of debt. If two entities agree to a voluntary trade where one borrows money now for the promise of paying it back later with interest, would your society forbid this? What if the entity issuing the debt issues it based on promised debt from other entities? If not, you've done nothing about debt at all. Simply waving your hands and going BUT FIAT CURRENCY doesn't change that debt and the ensuing inflation is just a thing that happens in market economies.
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Aug 10, 2014 10:21
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Hans-Hermann Hoppe can't be a racist because he's a libertarian and libertarians can't be racist. QED.
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Aug 10, 2014 10:34
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jrodefeld posted:Do you understand the concept of time preference? If I have a high time preference it merely means that I prefer goods sooner than later. Does that make me inferior? Does that make me less intelligent? If there are observed differences in time preference between different cultures and racial groups, why is it inherently racist to point that out? Keep digging, you shimmering autistic star
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Aug 10, 2014 11:03
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Psykmoe posted:I cannot for the life of me remember where I read it, if it was in an argument or somewhere published. Anyone know? Floating Utopias by China Mieville
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Aug 10, 2014 11:11
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jrodefeld posted:In the first place, these people are certainly NOT racist, rather they are less likely to kowtow to the enforcers of political correctness. 
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Aug 11, 2014 00:12
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jrodefeld posted:The crucial ingredient to a business cycle, central bank or no, is inflation of the money supply (i.e. the printing of paper money that isn't backed by gold or silver). Do you honestly think printing money is the only thing that leads to inflation? Actually curious here. Second of all, in a previous post you spoke of banks issuing competing currencies. How can they do that and also enforce having currency be backed by precious metals? Honestly guys I'd stop harping on the racism thing. It's clear that his brain shorts out when we mention the r-word. Let's just accept that he's seen that his idols are racist scum and has handily edited it out of his personal reality and get on with actually attacking the gaping holes in his intellectually bankrupt My First Philosophy?
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Aug 11, 2014 02:20
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I honestly find the gold thing the most hilarious part. Who are you to tell me and the customers of Quantum Mechanic Banking Pty. Ltd. that they require anything but my word for the backing of my QMBux? I am a captain of industry and a man of good standing in my covenant, and my customers trust that I will always be able to back up my promises of payment! You would enforce some sort of collectivist diktat upon us and force me to back my promises up with gold? This Statist interference is strangling the Free Market.
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Aug 11, 2014 02:30
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jrodefeld posted:What do you think the public outrage would be like if a prominent store chain instituted an open racially discriminatory policy? It's not racism, but 
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Aug 11, 2014 03:02
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jrodefeld posted:But there were plenty of people who heavily criticized the Chick fil a CEO also. There was a lot of outrage in the other direction. And it's not as if he did anything other than express his political opinion. He didn't refuse to serve gays. Protip: Chick-fil-a serves gays because it's illegal not to. Before the CRA, businesses would openly and happily refuse to serve black people, and faced zero backlash for it. But seeing how you can see my posts, care you explain why you'd enforce such a statist requirement on my bank as making me back up my currency with precious metals? Why should you dictate to my customers what money they can accept?
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Aug 11, 2014 04:52
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jrodefeld posted:The only acts of aggression we would have to concern ourselves with would be those against our physical bodies, since they would remain scarce. But since desired resources remain scarce we need to have a system of determining who gets to have jurisdiction over determining the use of what scarce resource. Thus we need private property rights. No, it means we need some sort of collective system for assigning the use of resources. Private property is just one possibility. jrodefeld posted:Furthermore, being secure in the things that you homestead, i.e. having the right to defend that property that you have acquired, means that society can become more prosperous and produce more and more which benefits all members of society. Which assumes everyone is homesteading and not, as would actually be the case, working for barely subsistence wages to buy enough food to survive as 1% of the country hoard their homesteads. jrodefeld posted:Now, if I acquire private property in a legitimate manner, then that means that I have the right to determine its best use. Only if you axiomatically assume a system of private property rights, which is not a given, and even then, not in all forms of systems of private property. You cannot argue universal truths by assuming a single narrow system of how things operate. jrodefeld posted:What you are suggesting is that the libertarian should abandon private property rights and simply apply the non-aggression principle to actual physical aggression against the physical bodies of the citizens. What we're suggesting is your definition of "violence" only applies if we all agree with your personal system of ethics. You don't get then to define the word "violence" as "whatever makes my system work." You are opening the box with the crowbar inside. jrodefeld posted:The predictable result of this is that conflict will exist EVERYWHERE. Since desired scarce resources exist everywhere, people will constantly be fighting over the use of those resources. Nobody is secure in anything he acquires because someone else can simply take it without consequence. The economy will never develop and humanity will be left at a subsistence level. Or alternatively, hear me out here, we could decide how those resources are to be used in a democratic fashion. You have set up a dichotomy between private property and endless war. This is disingenuous. Stop it. jrodefeld posted:I cannot see any other rational principle by which a person can acquire property legitimately than the principle of original appropriation or homesteading. Some of you object to this principle because most usable and desirable land is not in a “natural” state. We have not had a history of respect for the libertarian principle of property rights and therefore land was stolen over and over again by colonialism, by States, by thieves and so forth. So how can any land be considered justly acquired? Hmm, yes, how COULD any land be considered justly acquired? Interesting question. jrodefeld posted:I believe there is no legal statute of limitations on justice. If proof can be presented that property was stolen from you or your ancestors, then that property should be returned to you. However, there is a natural statute of limitations. The farther back in history you go, the harder it is to find evidence of theft or of property titles. The purpose of a rational concept of private property acquisition is not to atone for all the theft in the past (this is impossible) but to eliminate theft going forward. "gently caress you, got mine." jrodefeld posted:Civilization itself depends, literally, on the enforcement of private property rights. Repeating this does not make it any more true. jrodefeld posted:The reality of scarcity and the conflict that scarcity naturally produces means that the first owner, or the earlier owner of some scarce resource should have a better claim to authority over its use than anyone else. And the transfer of that scarce resource to a subsequent owner can only occur through voluntary sale, gift or trade. Because this is only the case when you a priori assume your conclusions are correct before you make them. You're right, when you construct your argument under the assumption that only libertarianism works, libertarianism is the only way things work! Congratulations! You still haven't answered my question about why QMBank is forced to back its promises with precious metals and why my customers can't simply be allowed to trust me.
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Aug 11, 2014 07:36
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Somfin posted:Which kind of amazingly ignores the historical fact of company towns where the residents are paid in scrip and all of the businesses are privately owned by the company. Also it nicely dodges the issue of cartels. Which, fair enough, cartels aren't even real. IIRC the last time jrodz curled out a thread into D&D he had literally zero knowledge of the historical fact of company towns and company scrip. Also the standard libertarian boilerplate to cartel behaviour is that cartel behaviour can only exist because of the State, because Reasons.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:12
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The idea that anyone could look at the insurance industry and go "mm, yes, more of this please" is mindboggling,
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Aug 11, 2014 11:23
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xtal posted:Whenever people are making fun of libertarians it's always about crud like monopolies and selfish businessmen. What about left libertarians aka anarchists who don't believe in that either? Depends on what critique of libertarianism you're using, but essentially any criticism of libertarianism that revolves around "without the state, XYZ will happen" pretty much also applies to anarchism. I have some anarchist leanings, myself, but only in the sense of "this is a fantastic ideal, how can we best set up the state so that it operates with distributed power." Anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, left-libertarianism, whatever you call it, isn't practical as a system of governance.
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Aug 12, 2014 05:15
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Topical:quote:Africa's Government is socialist and takes from the people to benefit large corporations, if we had a real free market in Africa things would not turn out that way and I would be glad to help children that are suffering due to the cruelty of a statist society.
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Aug 12, 2014 08:09
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CrazyTolradi posted:they're usually Economy grads Rarely, honestly. They tend more to have maybe done some basic economics or finance and a lot of "self-education" on mises.org.
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Aug 14, 2014 03:25
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