The basis of his arguement that the reason government is nessesary, is because without the use of force we would live in lawless crazy socities, in which we all somehow turn into crazy sociopathic nuts( A little exageration lol). Even though I disagree with that and thinks it a pretty bad argument, I thought I would post it to see your thoughts on the matter.
Lemme guess. Is he an American, and thus looking down on the rest of the world, as his bombers mass murder women and children, his fighter planes launch rockets into 3rd world schools, and totalitarian regimes are supported because they continue to supply US debt?
Methinks these people who think they have it all figured out, wouldn't be such fans of America government, if they were on the other side, being subjected to it's lawlessness, it's craziness, and it's crazy sociopathic leaders.
Wow, I've never heard this objection before!
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
Really?
Read some of the Hoppe links I provided you in the other topic and you'll have a good answer to this sort of nonsense. Specifically the ones regarding time preference and the process of decivilization.
The fact of the matter is that the effect of the state is to raise the time preference of individuals within society. Whereas the attacks of a common criminal will only have an effect on the allocation of money in relation to other present goods. Governments on the other hand, with the threat of future theft (and uncertainty over property titles) raise the time preference of society. You'll need to read Hoppe to gain a more in depth understanding of the argument. However there are other factors at play, such as government fiat money discouraging saving and encouraging spending and materialism.
Then there's the effect the welfare state has, and the incentive it creates. At the end of the day what we're left with is a population of adults who have mentally barely progressed past childhood. A population who have never, and will never, truly take responsibility for their actions and a population who are taught that violence is no problem and that they have a moral right to anything the politicians deem necessary. Moreover the state promotes the idea that there is no absolute right or absolute wrong.
To go even further the naturally arising institutions: the community, the family and the church (the cultural leftists may disagree with my examples, but nonetheless even they will agree that there exist natural institutions that provide order within society) have been consistantly destroyed and eroded by the actions of the state.
So given this, which society do you think will breed more "sociopathic nuts"?
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Eric: The basis of his arguement that the reason government is nessesary, is because without the use of force we would live in lawless crazy socities, in which we all somehow turn into crazy sociopathic nuts( A little exageration lol). Even though I disagree with that and thinks it a pretty bad argument, I thought I would post it to see your thoughts on the matter.
Actually farmers already plant every year without the state ordering them to. But surely we better pass some laws to order them to do so just in case, else we risk starvation at the whim of the farmers. What, no takers? The state really works in the way that it starts to regulate or monopolise some area of life that was doing just fine without it and then proclaims it`s existance is necessary because were it not for the state this whole area would go to hell. So a state today will say without it there would be no criminal law, although there was functioning criminal law before there was a state.
Similarly communist states would have claimed that without a state there would be no industry at all, were there no capitalist states left to act as proof to the contrary.
theres no law that tells me to wipe my ass after i shit, but i still manage somehow.
Scott Jefferies: theres no law that tells me to wipe my ass after i shit, but i still manage somehow.
Nicely put, I'd say
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community.
He seems to question the market specifically on the provision of defense, which is a commonly held belief from what arguments I usually hear. It is important to understand that defense would be demanded indiviually and can be thought of in marginal units. Search for Rothbards writings on defense and the marketplace, as well as Hoppe on the same topic.