Merging many states into one is never a good idea. Still the EU is here to stay (for a while, at least). What is the best libertarian option, the most advicable course of action to be taken now that the EU exists? Seccesion or Reform?
PS: Hope there are some europeans in the forum
Secession. It is a tyrannical organisation and people in all the member state countries should encourage their respective governments' to leave. All teh reform groups have failed and will failed. The goal is a one European state and the boat is going to get there. The only way to sto stop it is to jump ship and hope no-one is there when it gets there.
The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.
Yours sincerely,
Physiocrat
Secede while you can. Avoid the American way.
That, and exposing the fact the organisation in question was founded to subvert European national identity to a new European ideal, a goal to which it is already proceeding. Wake people up from the cheap-travel less-convoluted currency bread and circuses nonsense, and show them the actual detrimental effects of EU policy on it's member nations and what effect it has on them.
I was quite anti the EU but then I read this in "Bureaucracy" by Ludwig Von Mises:
The equilibrium in the distribution of powers between the Federal Government and the States as established by the Constitution has been seriously disturbed because the new powers that the authorities acquired for the most part accrued to the Union and not to the States. This is not the effect of sinister machinations on the part of mysterious Washington cliques, eager to curb the States and to establish centralization. It is the consequence of the fact of the fact that the United States is an economic unit with a uniform monetary and credit system with free mobility of commodities, capital, and men among the States. In such a country, government control of business must be centralized. It would be out of the question to leave it to the individual States. If each State were free to control business according to its own plans, the unity of the domestic market would disintegrate. State control of business would be practicable only if every State were in a position to separate its territory from the rest of the nation by trade and migration barriers and an autonomous monetary and credit policy.
Fried Egg:This is not the effect of sinister machinations on the part of mysterious Washington cliques, eager to curb the States and to establish centralization.
Mises is wrong on this account. I point to two Austrians: Thomas Woods with Theodore Roosevelt lectures and Tom DiLorenzo with Abraham Lincoln lectures. The two most pro-active centralizing presidents the 'United States' has experienced. These men made epic changes in the basic uniformity of thought concerning a monolithic state.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Anarchist Cain: Fried Egg:This is not the effect of sinister machinations on the part of mysterious Washington cliques, eager to curb the States and to establish centralization. Mises is wrong on this account. I point to two Austrians: Thomas Woods with Theodore Roosevelt lectures and Tom DiLorenzo with Abraham Lincoln lectures. The two most pro-active centralizing presidents the 'United States' has experienced. These men made epic changes in the basic uniformity of though concerning a monolithic state.
Mises is wrong on this account. I point to two Austrians: Thomas Woods with Theodore Roosevelt lectures and Tom DiLorenzo with Abraham Lincoln lectures. The two most pro-active centralizing presidents the 'United States' has experienced. These men made epic changes in the basic uniformity of though concerning a monolithic state.
You may well be right on that point but his central point remains intact, for all trade barriers to come down, in order to become a single economic unit, you cannot have different tax systems, legal systems, monetary policies, etc. in effect.
The best solution is not to join. As far as I can see, there is no advantage. THe EU is GENERATING REGULATIONS FASTER than the US Government. At some time the individuals in the EU will have more centralized regulations than in the US and keep all of their local regulations as well.
A better alternative for the individuals of the EU would be a gold back currency and dissolve the EU. This will put those individuals on top of the world as nations would deluge the EU with products, take the gold and then be forced to reinvest it in the EU, what else does one do with it? It is this Fascist-Mercantilist policies of central government and banks that hurt individuals.
Fried Egg:You may well be right on that point but his central point remains intact, for all trade barriers to come down, in order to become a single economic unit, you cannot have different tax systems, legal systems, monetary policies, etc. in effect.
Well taxation should be done away with where ever it stands. Legal systems can cooperate in a international capacity and monetary policies are a simple feat compared to the legal systems. For a trade barrier to come down...all that is necessary is the elimination of the state apparatus and thus fall the invisible lines..
Anarchist Cain: Fried Egg:You may well be right on that point but his central point remains intact, for all trade barriers to come down, in order to become a single economic unit, you cannot have different tax systems, legal systems, monetary policies, etc. in effect. Well taxation should be done away with where ever it stands. Legal systems can cooperate in a international capacity and monetary policies are a simple feat compared to the legal systems. For a trade barrier to come down...all that is necessary is the elimination of the state apparatus and thus fall the invisible lines..
Well, you're obviously an anarchist so I wouldn't expect you to agree with me, but given that a minarchists doesn't want to completely abolish the state, that it is necessary for the proivision of certain services (such as the judiciary), some amount of taxation is necessary along with a universal system of property rights.
Fried Egg:Well, you're obviously an anarchist so I wouldn't expect you to agree with me, but given that a minarchists doesn't want to completely abolish the state, that it is necessary for the proivision of certain services (such as the judiciary), some amount of taxation is necessary along with a universal system of property rights.
I will propose the same question to you that was proposed someone I greatly respect. It turned him from being where you are into an anarchist.
What is the legitimate basis for your lassize-faire government being confined solely to defense of person and property?
Anarchist Cain:I will propose the same question to you that was proposed someone I greatly respect. It turned him from being where you are into an anarchist. What is the legitimate basis for your lassize-faire government being confined solely to defense of person and property?
I really don't want degenerate this thread into an anarchist/minarchist debate but I'll have a quick stab at this.
By "legitimate basis" I presume you mean morally? Basically I think that unless our basic rights are universally recognised and enforced, irregardless of one's ability to pay, then it is not a free market or society. I guess I am an egalitarian as far as that goes. We should all be equal in the eyes of the law with equal rights. That's where liberty begins (in my opinion) and in it's absense there is no liberty.
Tradign is difficult in a multy-state environment?!
Hm, history does think otherwise. From the last Napoleonic Wars in 1812 to the Crimean War in the 1860’, Europe had many independent states, some of which where on a civil law system, others on common law systems. Moreover taxes where not only varied in rates but likewise in nature. Some countries taxed trade, others businesses. You see, one can hardly find any commonwealth, pardon the term, more varied within itself that XIX century Europe. Still that was the high point of European (and indeed global) Minarchism, the era of deflation, gold standards, mild fractional reserve banking, low taxes, free capital and people movement, scientific progress, low regulation, and NOT A SINGLE GOD-DAMNED WAR. How to account of that? (an other example, Chinese culture and science flourished when the country was most deeply divided in small states)
Why on earth should trade and capital movement be blocked if the trader needs to pay two kind of taxes? I’d rather submit that such an arrangement promotes trade, in as much as it allows for competing tax systems.
Mises had a great insight: without competition calculation is impossible. Well, why does he fail to implement his idea here? Without a measure of capital and human em/immigration how can, say, the UK understand whether it’s tax policies are decent or not? How can Brown calculate, rationally, the “optimal tax system” (if there is such a thing).
How can any minarchist even think of doing away with microstates and unlimited secession (again , an idea of Mises) without falling into the trap of the impossibility of calculation and economic chaos? Or else, how can a Minarchist speak of decent state role, even in thiis very thread, wihtout having a competitive measure of its ideas?
Finally, do you truly believe that world-wide trade is possible only if a single World Government exists? Check out you local store and you’ll see differently. International trade is anarchic (i.e. efficient) precisely because no single government regulates it. Holding the contrary would be hardly consistent with libertarianism, even if the guy speaking the works is the Great Mises.
Fried Egg: By "legitimate basis" I presume you mean morally? Basically I think that unless our basic rights are universally recognised and enforced, irregardless of one's ability to pay, then it is not a free market or society. I guess I am an egalitarian as far as that goes. We should all be equal in the eyes of the law with equal rights. That's where liberty begins (in my opinion) and in it's absense there is no liberty.
Remarkable! Simply remarkable! You bring up law and law enforcement and you sound like a hard core Marxist.
The same argument is made about education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc..... Of course, everyone forgot that before there was law and healthcare, there was food!
Political integration is most definitely not needed for economic integration... esp. since political integration is more akin to merging semi-competing law providers into one big monopoly with no challenge to its power, whereas integrating markets is usually more about removing statist impediments to their smooth functioning and exchange between them. The EU must fall.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Fried Egg: Anarchist Cain: Fried Egg:This is not the effect of sinister machinations on the part of mysterious Washington cliques, eager to curb the States and to establish centralization. Mises is wrong on this account. I point to two Austrians: Thomas Woods with Theodore Roosevelt lectures and Tom DiLorenzo with Abraham Lincoln lectures. The two most pro-active centralizing presidents the 'United States' has experienced. These men made epic changes in the basic uniformity of though concerning a monolithic state. You may well be right on that point but his central point remains intact, for all trade barriers to come down, in order to become a single economic unit, you cannot have different tax systems, legal systems, monetary policies, etc. in effect.
Oh we can't ?
Say hello to the Louisiana legal system, which is based on civil law instead of common law like the other states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_law
You know, I am not sure how familiar you are with Rothbard's work, but he claimed that the logical outcome of minarchism is a one world monarch government. I say you're proving his point.
I would rename it the Eastern American Empire.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
So I have a couple of questions for you. First of all, do you believe in taxation without representation then? And second of all, do you believe in government without consent of the governed? If you do believe in government only with consent of the governed, how do you rectify that with your belief that there has to be a small government?
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Fried Egg:By "legitimate basis" I presume you mean morally? Basically I think that unless our basic rights are universally recognised and enforced, irregardless of one's ability to pay, then it is not a free market or society. I guess I am an egalitarian as far as that goes. We should all be equal in the eyes of the law with equal rights. That's where liberty begins (in my opinion) and in it's absense there is no liberty.
No I mean by what right do you establish a government?
Please allow me to just clarify my position. I am not saying that trade is not possible or even particularly difficult between markets operating under different legal, fiscal and monetary systems. But I do think that Mises is right in that there will exist a tendancy for such systems to become harmonised where there exists free trade and movement of capital and labour. Just in the same way that price differentials across a market will tend to become harmonised through arbitrage, insitutional differentials will likewise be under a similar pressure because capital and labour will just migrate away from those areas with more punitive taxes or those areas that fail to protect property rights effectively. Etjon Basha raises a good point about competition between institutional frameworks being desireable in order to determine which form of setup is better. But on the other hand, it might lead to protectionst policies. Either the institutional frameworks will tend to harmonise or protectionist barriers will be imposed. And if it's the former, then you will end up with a system that for all intents and purposes is a monolithic institution.
In defence of an egalitarian legal system, I would say that in most arguments I have with socialists tend to rely pretty heavilly on the notion of property rights and their universal application. i.e. removing all this regulation won't lead to disaster if we have a proper system of property rights in place. I realise that this is kind of utalitarian reasoning but I don't think I can defend a system that doesn't guarantee property rights to all independently of their ability to pay for it. Otherwise how does one, starting out with nothing ever better themselves? They have a chance if they happen upon people who are willing to respect contractual arrangements with them or not engage in behaviour towards them that towards anyone else (who can afford it) would constitute a violation of their rights. Otherwise they could be enslaved with no recourse to the law.
That was a whole lot about nothing. My question was by what right do you establish a government under your Laissez faire system?
Anarchist Cain:My question was by what right do you establish a government under your Laissez faire system?
I don't think about it in those terms. I simply advocate the form of government that I believe maximises freedom.
Fried Egg:I don't think about it in those terms. I simply advocate the form of government that I believe maximises freedom
So you don't even question the existence of an institution you deem as necessary?
Anarchist Cain:So you don't even question the existence of an institution you deem as necessary?
I do question it, but not in those terms.
Let me tell one thing. You talk about free trade, OK? Do you need a supernational entity producing legislation at an alarming rate do warrant free trade? No. All it's needed is the prime ministers of the involved countries to sit down at a table for a couple of hours, draft a two pages document to submit to the respective parliaments and you are good to go. You don't need "free trade agreements" 400 pages long and you don't need a legislative body electors cannot control (the elected EU parliament at Strasbourg is worth a couple of wooden nickels, all power is with the Soviets... I mean Commissioners!) crunching legislation at a pace nobody, not even the legislation-starved Germans, can keep up with.
Attempts at European unification have an extremely poor record: you have the Romans, Charlemagne and quite a few of his successors, Louis XIV, the Jacobines, Napoleon... a nice list of bloodthirsty tyrants. You never have countries sitting down around a table and agreeing at merging with each other: the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) and the United Provinces (now Holland) tried that and they were at each other's throat in a matter of years, not to mention the attempt to unify the Netherlands and England (it became United Kingdom a tad later) under Stadtholder William III. Better to have good neighbourhood relationships than trying living under the same roof.
Frankly I believe the EU will bring about its own downfall by getting progressively detached from the real world. Being absolutely unable to confront the present economical depression (at least President Obama goes on TV and gives speeches) is all proof you need. The people at Bruxelles, for all their high sounding degrees and titles are failing to understand why their response failed to produce any result and are shocked and baffled at their incapacity of reviving what has been a moribund Continent since the '70s.
Fried Egg:I do question it, but not in those terms.
By what right does a laissez faire government exist? Perhaps your wording is different but I see it as a fundamental question to the structure of your 'minarchist' ideology.
Actually, the question of who to vote for in the recent European Elections was quite a conundrum to me. The parties that most favoured political and economic integration were also those that were most in favour of free trade. The anti-EU parties, such as UKIP and BNP were very isolationist. Both wanted to clamp down on what little freedom of movement (of people) that currently exists within the EU. The BNP was heavilly protectionist as well.
Meaning that those who oppose the European Union (but not opposed to voting) would have found themselves voting for very un-freemarket and libertarian principles in order to vote against the EU. As I said, quite a conundrum.
Fried Egg:If all trade barriers between member states were to be eliminated in Europe, a centralisation of political power would surely be the innevitable result?
Fried Egg:There are many things that the EU has achieved (or is striving to achieve) that most libertarians should approve of: Removal of trade barriers, free movement of capital and people, etc. If Mises was right, then we should expect to see a centralisation of political power across the EU. And if we are minachists like he was, we should welcome it as a good thing.
I am peronally pro-occidental, but I am certainly not in favor of a centralized eurocrazy as it is emerging now. Lot's of the opening up has the adverse effect on stiffening other controls. i.e. they removed border posts, but on the contrary the police got more powers to put their noses into the private lives of people.
I personally hope we get out of the EU as soon as possible. In a sense, the politicians, as Daniel Hannan has pointed out, don't really care what the people think if it doesn't enhance centralisation. Every referendum on the EU constitution and Lisbon treaty has been soundly rejected. I think they don't dare place one here in the UK, as I think the defeat here would be the most emphatic.
I remember my housemate brought up a useful point on this though. The Euro-skeptic parties tend to do very well in the European elections, however this is totally ineffective, as they will bear no influence on whether their country remains in the UK. Parties like UKIP, have to start more national campaigns.
Also, about the good consequences of the EU; it started off with a free trade treaty encompassing Europe. This was not part of the EU itself, but was used as a backdoor to push through centralised European regulations and eventually the EU.
"When the King is far the people are happy." Chinese proverb
For Alexander Zinoviev and the free market there is a shared delight:
"Where there are problems there is life."
Fried Egg: Actually, the question of who to vote for in the recent European Elections was quite a conundrum to me. The parties that most favoured political and economic integration were also those that were most in favour of free trade. The anti-EU parties, such as UKIP and BNP were very isolationist. Both wanted to clamp down on what little freedom of movement (of people) that currently exists within the EU. The BNP was heavilly protectionist as well.
I'll admit I disagree with UKIP's immigration stance, but they never said the were not in favour of free trade. As far as I know, their stance is that they would go back to the original free trade packed signed with the EU and nothing more. They are certainly not vile racists and socialists like the BNP(who themselves consider themselves like the "Old Labour Party"), and I don't like how people are so ready to casually group the 2 together. i suppose this can be forgiven as they certainly don't get the free publicity the BNP have gotten from the British press, making their election performance all the more impressive.
It was an amusement I found with a statement a housemate of mine made to me after I voted UKIP, that if i wasn't brown skinned he would have told me that voting for them would have been the "Gateway" to supporting the BNP.
Spideynw:So I have a couple of questions for you.
I will answer too.
Spideynw:First of all, do you believe in taxation without representation then?
I am not a democrat. The ruler is irrelevant, the nature of laws, the amount of taxes, the extent of rule matter.
Spideynw:And second of all, do you believe in government without consent of the governed?
No. Nothing is ever fully consensual on a societal level.
Spideynw:If you do believe in government only with consent of the governed, how do you rectify that with your belief that there has to be a small government?
See above.
Well Scineram,
Since Fried Egg seems to want to dodge the question I proposed and you took up a question proposes to him then perhaps I can propose a question to you concerning your lassize faire government.
By what right does a lassize faire government come into existence?
abskebabs:I'll admit I disagree with UKIP's immigration stance, but they never said the were not in favour of free trade. As far as I know, their stance is that they would go back to the original free trade packed signed with the EU and nothing more. They are certainly not vile racists and socialists like the BNP(who themselves consider themselves like the "Old Labour Party"), and I don't like how people are so ready to casually group the 2 together. i suppose this can be forgiven as they certainly don't get the free publicity the BNP have gotten from the British press, making their election performance all the more impressive. It was an amusement I found with a statement a housemate of mine made to me after I voted UKIP, that if i wasn't brown skinned he would have told me that voting for them would have been the "Gateway" to supporting the BNP.
Yes, the UKIP do favour open trade agreements with the EU (and elsewhere) but are very anti immigration. From their own website: "We will freeze immigration for five years, speed up deportation of up to a million illegal immigrants by tripling the numbers engaged in deportations, and have ‘no home no visa’ work permits to ease the housing crisis."
I'm sure that most people on this site will appreciate the fact that free trade without free movement of people is pretty hollow. Plus, they may want to remove one level of political beuracracy but they want to add another: "We will be fair to England, with an English Parliament of English MPs at Westminster. We will replace assembly members like MSPs with MPs. And we will promote referenda at local and national levels."
I ended up voting Conservative simply because they were most skeptical (of the major parties) about increasing EU powers.
Anarchist Cain:By what right does a lassize faire government come into existence?
I dislike the term laissez faire government. But a govenment comes into existence through conquest or treaty, like US or UK. A state is practically unavoidable it seems to me. I am not concerned with rightfulness. I am not a believer in rights.
My good friends, allow me to put a more realistic spin on the thread. Hulsmann in this brilliant article of his (http://mises.org/journals/jls/13_1/13_1_4.pdf) highlighted that a country willingly surrenders sovereignty (read: its ruling elite willingly surrenders power) only when absolutely forced to. That is, only when facing a hopeless financial situation.
The whole EU was created to prepare an eventual merger with the then USSR, by allowing their socio-political systems to collude at social-democracy, thus using European money to save the soviets from financial collapse. The whole idea behind Glasnost and Perestroika was precisely to have the USSR move towards a social-democratic state. The collapse was surely unwarranted.
Now back to some EU country, say the UK. By January a number of voices raised concerns about Great Britain’s ability to service the incredible debt it was resorting to “deal with” the financial crisis. Britain is broke, to put it simply.
Unwilling to let major banks go belly-up, the UK has, at least as I see it, only few choices: inflate (or hyper-inflate, as that is what it will take to pay all that debt), repudiate debt or join the EU, where less financially strained countries (most of eastern Europe) can still pour funds to pay the UK’s debt. The growing consensus among British parties for European integration than, can be seen as the only choice open to the British elite.Having this complication in mid, please tell me, what would you do if you where in Brown’s shoes?
scineram: I am not concerned with rightfulness. I am not a believer in rights.
I am not concerned with rightfulness. I am not a believer in rights.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
A) right(s):
2: being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper
10: acting or judging in accordance with truth or fact
12: most favorable or desired : preferable
synonyms see correct
B) right(s) (same dictionary)
2: something to which one has a just claim
4: the cause of truth or justice
6 a: the true account or correct interpretation b: the quality or state of being factually correct
of right: legally or morally exactable
----
Rights are legitimate laws. Liberty is sustained or restored with justice.
Okay, what are legitimate laws?
read the dictionary quotes above...
Merlin: Merging many states into one is never a good idea. Still the EU is here to stay (for a while, at least). What is the best libertarian option, the most advicable course of action to be taken now that the EU exists? Seccesion or Reform? PS: Hope there are some europeans in the forum
Dude, I would impose libertarian values from the top down, of course.
Political centralization creates many new exciting opportunities. It means a uniform legal and regulatory code, reducing complexity and enhancing the enforceability of contracts between institutions previously under separate jurisdictions and creating equality before the law. It replaces a number of competing fiat currencies with a single fiat currency, enhancing economic calculation. It eliminates tariffs and migration barriers (in effect, open borders), and creates a truly multicultural society. It reduces interstate armed conflicts, since there are fewer states. It also reduces the 'brain drain' problem, since migrations which previously meant an exit of the state's territory are now within the state's territory. And, since the major barrier to taking action on climate change is regional selfishness, it helps us preserve the Environment.
On a more serious note, this are pretty good.
Also, there are a series of video speeches on google video. Just type in "Marlborough Research Group" and click search. Ashley Mote in particular is great. I think there is a serious chance that Great Britain may leave the European Union. They seem to be bearing a great burden and reaping none of the reward. It can't be too popular in England.
Just my thoughts.
Refreshing, thanx
Stephen Forde:I think there is a serious chance that Great Britain may leave the European Union. They seem to be bearing a great burden and reaping none of the reward.
But than again, please adress my previous post.