What are your thoughts on waste and as it relates to the State and the market (i.e., society) ?
I'm thinking only a small minority of the global population would be able to consume as much or what they wanted to without the state and without violating the NAP as they currently do.
Also, wouldn't there be more isolation from one ethnic group to the other if there were more confederal govts in the world? Don't confederal unions actually keep the non-native born out more than a centralized state does?
If you consider respect for private property rights as being part of the NAP then: No, The state is a much worse promoter of consumption and Adherence to the NAP minimises waste/pollution, constrains consumption and maximises the openness of society.
The state uses violence to promote consumption by hiding consumers from the full costs of their purchasing decisions and diverts wealth away from savings into consumption. As society without a state that follows the NAP would not have an institution capable for these tasks. The result would be that consumers save more, consumer less and are in the long run wealthier. As for pollution, polluting the property of another is an aggression against person and property. The polluted person would have a legitimate claim of redress against the polluter. Contrast this to what we see today where govenrment decides which parties have redress in which disputes based upon a vast number of often conflicting regulations that protect current large interests at the expense of private property owners.
A society that follows the NAP and respects private property rights would be definition be a much more hospitable place for foreigners to come and live than otherwise for those foreigners that respected the same values. Keep in mind that there would be no welfare state in such a place so there would be much less hostility to foreigners as there is now and much less need to manage the situation as there is now.
Thanks Bogart. I do think that since most of the global population does not follow the NAP, then liberty would be of no value to the majority.
The majority lack the ability to reason; the minority is right, however.
They have the ability to do so. Whether they choose to exercise it or not is another story.
The difference between a free society and the current one is that wealth generation requires capital accumulation, and therefore the maintenance of a carefully orchestrated capital structure. It isn't the case that wealth requires the state, at all, but rather that the West has gone so far in destroying its capital structure, consuming wealth it once did produce, and now is stuck with obtaining it through cheap debt at the expense of foreigners and future generations.
It is true that a free society will allow for as much or as little segregation as its inhabitants desire. That is a good thing. Forced association simply creates tensions.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
"It isn't the case that wealth requires the state, at all, but rather that the West has gone so far in destroying its capital structure, consuming wealth it once did produce, and now is stuck with obtaining it through cheap debt at the expense of foreigners and future generations."
Could you describe the causal mechanisms through which this is brought about?
Welfare spending, corporatism, artificially abundant credit, accumulation of consumer debt, and war.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
Let me see if I understand your thought process
An artificial expansion of the credit supply and consumer debt/dissaving both complement each other in this respect, as they both lead to a destruction of capital values, both in terms of what could have been and what exists at any one time, since partially accumulated capital will likely lose its value compared to what it otherwise could have been.
War destroys capital values from what they otherwise would have been by providing things which consumers desire. Non-consumer based welfare spending has the same effect. Consumer based welfare-spending has no such effect, it just decreases the value of what capital could provide. Corporatism has a great potential to decrease the amount of capital which could be made available, but it would have to make firms extremely uncompetitive and wasteful in order to actually consume capital. How do you believe that this actually leads to a decrease in capital values?
Have I represented your views correctly?
I would like more discussion on the claims which John made.
Well Jon Irenicus said
Destruction of its capital structure.
I took this to mean a conversion from a lengthening productive structure of production to a shortening/stagnant non-productive one.
Corporatism destroys production because its aim is to reduce supply or simply obtain the right of increase.
Welfare destroys production and shortens production because it is an allocation of producers' incomes to non-producers so they can consume, as espoused by Keynesians.
Artificially abundant credit masks malinvestments leading to more investments in unprofitable undertakings.
Accumulation of consumer debt simply means that net savers are turned into net consumers because of the debt load.
War tautologically allocates resources away from production towards destruction.
I think that you were attributing a more specific meaning to Jon's statement than I was. The capital structure, if not by corporatism, most certainly is shortened by the accumulation of debts for consumer spending. I haven't looked at the figures, nor would I know which figures specifically to look at to determine whether all of these have been sufficiently harmful to turn the rate of capital structure lengthening negative.