And so am I.
Sorry for the provocative title, but Im sure you're used to the BS.
I have a really hard time getting around the problem of living within a 'fallen society'. I believe that anarchocapitalism is probably about the best starting point for a sciety there is. However, we do live in a land that's very far from that ideal. How much of our lives should be devoted to attaining that ideal, if any, and how much should be devoted to getting the most out of our current situation?
Should I use the roads that were forged by statists? Should I take a salary from the schools that are supported by statists? If the government gives everyone a million dollar stimulus check, should I take one too? If they only give it to 99% of the population, should I take one too? If they only give it to 50% of the population, should I take one too? If they only give it to me, should I take it?
Should I just sit back and let others lobby for stimulus checks and then take whatever proceeds their lobbying results in or should I too lobby for a check? Should I lobby for a tax break? Should I lobby for a tax break for everyone only?
Should I use their roads?
Should I use their schools?
Should I take their stimulus checks?
Should I be a bureaucrat?
Should I be a soldier?
Should I be a banker?
How can you justify ANY action within an imperfect world unless that action is your best effort to create your ideal state?
How much should I spend on entertainment when there a people starving to death? How much should I eat, just enough to keep me producing for those in even worst conditions than myself? How much should I sleep when there are people in darkness and headed to hell? Should I try to convery others to christianity only 16 hrs per day? Or should I try 18 hrs or 20 hrs?
Should I simply do whatever my appetites say? Should I rob, rape and murder whenever I feel the urge? Should I try to stop those that do? How hard should I try to stop those that do?
And who is to judge what I do? If you dont like what I do, should I care? If even I dont like what I do, should I care? Why should I even care about anything if Im just going to end up being a pile of dirt? What if that's not true? What if I have a soul and it lives on? Could there be a set of eternal rewards and punishments? If there is an eternity and if there exists a judge, doesnt everything else pale in comparison? What would it matter if the world fully attained your ideal state if when you die theres an afterlife and you find your actions were enternally punishable?
What do we do?
"The best way to bail out the economy is with liberty, not with federal reserve notes." - pairunoyd
"The vision of the Austrian must be greater than the blindness of the sheeple." - pairunoyd
The title of this thread (and the intro sentences) are eerily familiar. I would have bet money this thread already existed. I mean, this has been discussed plenty of times before, but I swear I remember someone titling the thread that and then saying in the post that they were "guilty" too and apologizing for using a "shocking" title. Incredibly weird.
Anyway, this as been addressed plenty of times, for years. Notably by Walter Block.
We also went into this quite a bit in the Against Taxes thread.
Submit or resist.
I decided to respond in pictures.
"We must cultivate our garden."
“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
“Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.”
If the government gives everyone a million dollar stimulus check, should I take one too?
It would be foolish to not.
Abeunt studia in mores.
I am a consequentialist who doesn't like his wealth stolen. I don't steal other's wealth.
When it comes to roads, most of the major ones I derive on are owned and operated by private firms. The water and electricity utilities are private firms. Education was funeded by private scholarships. I don't accept middle class welfare.
Lyrics to one of my favorite songs, it's by the Yardbirds:
Shapes of things before my eyes, Just teach me to despise. Will time make men more wise? Here within my lonely frame, My eyes just hurt my brain. But will it seem the same?
Come tomorrow, will I be older? Come tomorrow, may be a soldier. Come tomorrow, may I be bolder than today?
Now the trees are almost green. But will they still be seen? When time and tide have been. Fall into your passing hands. Please don't destroy these lands. Don't make them desert sands.
Soon I hope that I will find,
Thoughts deep within my mind.
That won't disgrace my kind.
Here's the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc17DqcA6Qc
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
But the government is stealing purchasing power from you not actual money. Just to keep your purchasing power equal you must take the check or you are being disadvantaged. Your principle is that of self degradation in this case.
"I do not steal victory."
"Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all."
What do you do? You accept that the world isn't perfect, and move on with your life.
I understand that a tranfer of wealth occurs whenever the fed prints dollars, but shouldnt I be against that transfer and not accept something that baed upon the principle of theft? What if 1 man or 100,000 men say theyre not going to give in and accept the transfer of wealth, would that make your acceptance of the money better or worse?
If the government decided to redistribute wealth to you and no one else, would you take it? Why would the redistribution to just you change the rightness or wrongness of it? If its distributed to anything less than 100% of the population, isnt it then wrong for you to take it?
Also, there are varying degrees of wealth. Those with less wealth 'benefit' more from equal redistributions of wealth. If someone is wealthier than you, wouldnt it be wrong for you to take an equal amount? If you act in any way less than the ideal, then are you saying you should just do whatever it takes to get as much as you can since the system is imperfect anyway?
How much thought and sacrafice should you put into your actions?
Correct, if you got into the social sciences in any way because you like people / human interaction, just do the things that you are good at when interacting with other people. Hell do the things you are bad at with interacting with other people - that's usually more fun anyway
Ive heard that angels wouldnt need a government. Would that mean that our best course would be to be 'angels', thus making government unnecessary, thus bringing about that ideal state?
Well then, what would an angel do?
I am 100% in libertarianism. I love the stuff. But at the same time, ultimately, it seems that everything is for naught unless its either eternal or for a very very very long time. The importance of things seem to grow as they become more enduring.
shouldnt I be against that transfer and not accept something that baed upon the principle of theft? What if 1 man or 100,000 men say theyre not going to give in and accept the transfer of wealth, would that make your acceptance of the money better or worse?
I don't know what you should do. Only you do.
Personally, I do not see self-sacrifice particularly virtuous. The dumbest thing Socrates did was drink that hemlock.
From my perspective, yes. It is wrong for you to take it. You take the check when everyone gest one because if you do not you are losing out. You are shooting at an arbitrarily small goal (as Molyneux would say), 'the goal is made wider, so people take advantage of it. You not taking advantage of it also makes no sense.'
Really, if you think about it, if the government gives checks to anyone, everyone should take it. If everyone takes an equal proportion of the newly created money, prices go up nominally, but nothing changes. If everyone is taking an equal amount then the previous income will stay the same.
If you act in any way less than the ideal, then are you saying you should just do whatever it takes to get as much as you can since the system is imperfect anyway?
To me, it is dutiful to deplete the resources of the State. When it runs out, you are vindicated.
It depends.
You can't do anything useful in the social studies by calling people and thinking of people sheeple, as it says in your quote. Don't let a stagnant "fixed idea" destroy you. And don't let a method become a mindset
also, there does seem to be some relation to your talents and your purpose and doing good. It seems were in possession of our own unique set of tools that can be used to forge circumstances toward some purpose.
But still, all of this seems to hover around the core of the issue, which in my mind seems best posed by the question, Why? To every answer a why.
To every answer a why.
And to everyone who reads that. A sigh.
you say your duty is to drain the state by taking what they give. So you believe that taking what the state gives reduces its power? I thought that the states power comes from us. If you take from the state arent you taking power from others?
Dont the bankers and the fed and all the top dogs in our system that game the system maximumly take from 'the state'?
At what point do you stop accepting these transfers from the state in relation to others' refusal to accept these transfers?
If everyone refused to acknowledge the state and its various attemps to redistribute power and wealth, the state would die. For many years we've been accepting these transfers from the state and for many years it continues.
ou say your duty is to drain the state by taking what they give. So you believe that taking what the state gives reduces its power?
Doesn't it? Every second interest rates are depressed digs the whole a little deeper. You realize that they chaos will start when they bring rates up. We'll have done our duty along with those unaware that they are doing so also.
I thought that the states power comes from us. If you take from the state arent you taking power from others?
haha, Theoretically it comes from the "consent of the goverened," but for all intent and purpose it gets its legitimacy (power) by having banks and corporations sponsor its activities with their vast amounts of money. JP Morgan Underwrites the unemployment and food stamp programs...they lobby for consumption welfare. You might not pay your loan back, but the government has a legal method of coercing money from people, taxation. This lets the banks know that they will get their money back.
They are the State.
We get the scraps, the runoff; the bread and circuses. They have taken over a large part of the world.
I suppose you'd have to play it by ear.
If everyone refused to acknowledge the state and its various attemps to redistribute power and wealth, the state would die.
I think Marx had similar views about the end of the state. But, for altogether different reasons. He was not correct it seems.
For many years we've been accepting these transfers from the state and for many years it continues.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
you say we get the scraps of the bankers. Cant anyone that gets anything less than what the top person or group gets make the same claim as you and thus justify getting whatever portion they can? Does it make it better if this transfer of wealth that you accept comes to you without your direct efforts to acquire it rather than if you directly attempt to acquire these transfers? However, I assume you have to put forth at least a little effort to acquire this transfer, even if its just to go to your mailbox or to cash the check or to exchange the transfer of wealth for a good or service. To what point in this acquisition of wealth can you go before you become a statist?
I guess you could say that you're using the state's redistribution of wealth to end the state and thus the effect of your acceptance of such redistributions is a net negative upon the state's continuance. Is that what you're saying, that your acquisition of wealth thru the mechanism of the state is justified because you'll employ that wealth to dismantle the state?
Cant anyone that gets anything less than what the top person or group gets make the same claim as you and thus justify getting whatever portion they can?
Does the State give the Fed anything? The people at the top only gain benefits from the state through the central bank. The central bank is unconstrianed by law. It makes the State and the State made it, but the State is nothing without it. It has grown too large.
The ethics of redistribution are moot. I am playing devils advocate. People will argue and say that "democracy" chooses redistribution, you cannot win the ethical argument. You show them how yield curves function and then laugh when they call you dogmatic.
your acquisition of wealth thru the mechanism of the state is justified because you'll employ that wealth to dismantle the state?
The act of the state redistributing is the dismantling of the state. Every dollar the State loans to people, it itself has borrowd from the private banks who get it from the central bank. The problem is in making a State nervous it tends to do drastic power grabbing things. You run the risk of making it stronger.
If there currently existed your ideal libertarian world, but there came upon the scene a statist and he began to convert libertarians to statism, would your acceptance of any wealth theyre able to acquire be a good tactic to employ if you wish for their demise? Would the effectiveness of this tactic grow in proportion with the prevalence of statism?
So you are asking if as a libertarian I would try to prevent the spread of ideas? Actually wait...
You are going to need to ask this in a more clear manner. I do not know what you are getting at. What I italicized, I don't understand at all.
Youve said that your acceptance of the state's transfers of wealth will hasten their demise. We currently are in a heavily statist world and seemingly have fewer liberties every day. Do you think that your acceptance of the state's transfers of wealth would be as effective in hastening their demise if the world were currently less staist and more libertarian?
And by the way, I believe the best society thus far theorized would be an anarcho-capitalist society, which means we're likely very close in our beliefs. I ask these questions because of internal conflicts I'm trying to resolve. I debate nearly every day in favor of diminishing the size of the state and I buy Austrian School books and REAL money off the net. My biggest strategy, other than talking with people about libertarian ideas, is to attain a greater degree of financial independence thru the acquisition of real money. I belief that the more people are prepared for a post-fiat world, the less likely theyre going to be willing to hand over their liberties for state assistance and a continuation of fiat.