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I see all these wonderful lists on the internet comparing the costs and benefits of health care plans all over the world, by which is meant the degree to which standard medical care is subsidized by the central authority. In comparing the costs, I always see a per-person number, but what I wonder is this: Are any of these plans, or the governments that
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Okay, but that still doesn't clear up for me what you mean by "absolute anarchy." The abolition of private property requires an outside enforcement agency because of the extension-of-person definition that Rothbard describes, I would think. So, anarcho-communism isn't anarchy; as you say, it's chaos. But people will employ private
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I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Caley. I don't see anything mutually exclusive about "absolute anarchy" and division of labor and comparative advantage leading to natural hierarchies within the social order. The issue would be the statist monopoly of force. In the absence of that, I would consider it anarchy.
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The first problem is that he misunderstands the Austrian emphasis on a priori ratiocination. Rothbard doesn't avoid examples of the consequences of malinvestment; he just doesn't use them to justify the logic of the argument. The reviewer sounds like a classic case of econ professor - move with the herd, get published with the herd, everything's
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First of all, as Rothbard points out, anarchy doesn't mean everything is sunshine and roses all the time, it is just a better system from an a priori AND a practical standpoint than any that we have. The simplest justification for this argument is that almost everything "bad" that anyone says might happen under anarchy happens in our current
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There is a review of Rothbard's book from Amazon quoted here: http://mises.org/store/Americas-Great-Depression-P63.aspx The person quoting the review thinks it is a great refutation of Rothbard; I'd love to take it apart and I know there are a lot of economists here who might have something to say.
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The reference point question drives me nuts, too. Since the planet has been through more than one cooling and warming period, chances are that the annual mean temperatures are exactly the same as they were at some point in history. And why does it matter, anyhow? I think the global climate change discussion can only be discussed in terms of direct consequences
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Man, the baby's asleep, the realtor's coming over, I am supposed to get the house clean, and what am I doing?
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[quote user="Natalie"] [quote user="thompsonisland"]Intentionally taking a human life, regardless of the motivation, presents some profound moral quandaries for me that only resolve when I commit not to do it, under any circumstance.[/quote] I don't think people are inherently comfortable with violence and murder unless conditioned
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Awww. I highly recommend The Tao of Physics.