Words get made up all the time and everyone loves to learn them.
It makes no sense to fight against the tide.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Stranger: Words get made up all the time and everyone loves to learn them. It makes no sense to fight against the tide.
I also see how it doesn't make sense to adopt a more direct term in describing anarchism' core principles. Yes, said term is still under the umbrella of anarchism, but it wouldn't be made of previously used words that confuse other's & set off the right red flags which may prevent memetic transmission of information regarding our differing philosophies. Somehow, an attempt at clarification goes against epistemology?
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
You know full well I didn't mean rulers in the sense you just used. Nonetheless we do favour individuals with authority, in the form of a natural elite, trusted with the task of arbitrating between groups. In which case "anarchism" is not just silly strategically, but misleading.
Actually I reject this conservative notion of a "natural elite". I think that the concept of a "natural elite" is all that statists have to fall back upon when the idea of democracy is worn threadbare and when the idea that humans are evil therefore we need humans in power to stop humans from being evil is evidently nonsensical. The fall-back rationale for a state at such a point is a "natural elite" who are inherently more fit to govern than everyone else.
But we never rejected the idea, just the term. At least Nitroaddict didn't.
You yourself have repeatedly rejected anarchism as a movement and philosophy, not just as a term.
No you claim the anarcho communists and capitalists can live side by side. Perhaps some of them can,but I'd doubt the majority will really respect property rights when push comes to shove.
I disagree in that I think most people implicitly respect property rights in terms of behavior, regaurdless of their ideology.
You just have an Orwellian conception of the term "property rights".
That accusation comes from nowhere and is silly. I have a perfectly fine conception of the term "property rights" - I just so happen to realize that when a lot of people attack the concept of "property rights", they are not necessarily entirely attacking the same conception I hold, they have a different definition of their terms. This isn't orwellian, it's an understanding of the fact that people define things differently and hence semantic ambiguities will arise in debate.
What do you mean? A personal prediction like abolishing the state will lead to greater material prosperity? If that's a prediction then so is mine.
Greater material prosperity for the masses is an egalitarian outcome. I share that prediction - and don't see how it's necessarily incompatible with egalitarianism.
Especially as they'd be looked down upon by those not particularly fond of egalitarianism.
This is your own prediction based on your own biases. Your prediction that people in society will not be fond of egalitarian outcomes is not particularly provable or rational. I find it silly that you assume that people will dominantly share your ideology in a free society.
These silly ideologies only have supporters now because the state exists and it's not been proven an absolutely failure.
I'm sorry, that claim is absurd. People do not desire egalitarian outcomes merely because the state exists. The existance of the state is not the only or primary cause of people's desire for egalitarian outcomes. I know this because I desire egalitarian outcomes and completely reject the state. There is no absolute connection between egalitarianism and statism.
As for the libertines, well, competition between communities would eliminate them.
What specifically do you mean by "the libertines"? Anyone who isn't a cultural conservative? If you're claiming that competition would competely eliminate this, you're once again uniformly superimposing your personal biases and preferances onto the concept of a free society. So long as there is a demand for "libertine" things, there will be "libertine" assocations. Everyone doesn't magically become a cultural conservative when the state dissapears.
http://libregamewiki.org - The world's only encyclopedia on free(as in freedom) gaming.
kiba:To abandon the label anarchist and anarchism is to basically abandon hundred years of tradition that extend all the way back to the first individualist anarchist. It is very much like asking computer hackers to abandon their labels or asking them to rename the free software movement. Their terminology might be distorted by the media through time but they have their reason to continue to using it. I prefer that we try to reclaim and take back the term instead before abandoning them to the sand of time. As much some of you might hate the term, I love the anarchist label. It speak to the rebel in me and give me a "warm" feeling. (What's cooler than a lone individual opposing the big giant bully known as the state?) Also, I am very reluctant to abandon a term that we have used for so long. It's a preference thing.
Voluntaryism is a philosophy that opposes anything that it sees as unjustifiably invasive and coercive. Voluntaryism regards government as coercive, and calls for its abolishment, but, unlike a number of other anarchist philosophies, it supports strong property rights which it regards as a natural law that is compatible with non-coercion.The term "voluntaryism" is often used today as a synonym for free-market anarchist or anarcho-capitalist beliefs. However, voluntaryism differ in strategy than other free-market anarchists. They often use non-politics with non-voting as a strategy.[1]
And as for the idea of anarcho capitalism or nothing. Well, I was wrong, anarcho communism would be able to exist, I just doubt it would survive. And yes, you're pandering to the left.
I'm not pandering to the left. There's no "left" to pander to here. I'm repeatedly clashing with conservative-libertarians.
But anyway, government rests upon consent. They consent to the government.
No, it doesn't. No government is consistantly consented to. Noone completely consents to the government as a whole, the government ultimately makes decisions regaurdless of their consent or lack thereof. You are misinterpreting La Boetie.
Do you realize that the idea that the government is based on the consent of the governed is a common statist arguement for legitimacy, by spreading the ideology that the government is voluntary in its basis? The rejection of precisely such an ideology of legitimacy is part of what lead me to become an anarchist to begin with! Isn't precisely what leads one to shift from minarchism to anarchism the realization that the state in fact isn't consistantly voluntary, that the state inherently violates voluntaryism? If the state IS in fact purely voluntary, then libertarianism should lead to a statist conclusion. Fortunately, it doesn't, because states are not voluntary.
They make up the majority of the population.
Who doesn't vote.
Do you agree with this so far? If so then you must agree that it is because of the poor that we are stuck with this plague.
Sorry, you're just using bad philosophy to reinforce your already existing distain for the poor. Blaming the poor for the state is absurd and not a very libertarian sentiment.
No, I understand you perfectly well. You favour an alliance with the left based on cultural factors and you're doing your best to bend over backwards to try and make your ideologies fit.
It is not really based on cultural factors, it's based on a shared opposition to state and corporate power. I'm not bending over backwards to make the ideoogies fit. The ideologies do fit. You just seem to cling to a warped view of the political spectrum in which "left" = bad in an absolute sense.
And yes, being young by definition does make people less mature. Yes, again, biological factors related to age does mean that the youth are more inclined to rebel against authority. All I said was others won't take them seriously, which they don't.
Obviously I disagree with your conservative interpretation of this, since I think that to a degree the tendency of youth to oppose authority is extremely healthy and necessary. Subservience isn't a healthy trait to cling to into adulthood.
Either they recognise property rights to the same extent that we do or they're not compatible with us. If they do recognise property rights as we do, that means fully recognising private property, and still choose to live in communes, that's fine. Silly, but fine. This isn't difficult stuff.
Hell - we don't even have a clear consensus on property rights among ourselves!
No, I'm just not willing to and not silly enough to think that we can change anything. We can associate ourselves with tthese fools. But we can't change people's minds about what anarchism stands for.
Again, you're confused about who specifically I advocate associating with.
No I suggest giving the libertarian movement a chance by distancing ourselves from these culture (or lack thereof) anarchists. Meanwhile dropping relations with the fraud and inconsistant anarchists. Starting with adopting a different name. You seem to have a strange attachment to a word.
My interpretation of this is that you wish to use your cultural preferances as a prerequisite to be part of the libertartian movement.
Just because I refer to myself as an voluntaryist doesn't my beliefs. And far as distancing myself from the anarchist movement, perhaps we should, I believe we're an entirely new movement! It's really kind of exciting when you think about it.
Nick. B: Just because I refer to myself as an voluntaryist doesn't my beliefs. And far as distancing myself from the anarchist movement, perhaps we should, I believe we're an entirely new movement! It's really kind of exciting when you think about it.
There's really no need to distance one's self from anarchism when you are in the company of open-minded people and/or those who know what anarchism really is, as opposed to the company of those who buy into the assumptions & ignorance of a Statist society regarding anarchy. Seriously, how far is one going to get in the company of Statists when you describe yourself as a market-anarchist? I never really got far until I refined my argument to focus on the actual principles, not the label itself. To me, this involved shifting my label & avoiding red flag terms, which helps give my argument legitimacy to those who would normally just shake their heads, put their fingers in their ears, and just shout "LA LA LA LA NOT HEARING YOUR LOGIC". Sometimes, I don't need to do that though, & it's an intellectual relief whenever I do encounter someone open-minded enough to not have to slip my ideas under the radar, & I can freely use the term anarchsm. Better still, is the possibility of people hearing voluntaryist, accepting it, then eventually coming to terms with the term anarchism itself. Spreading education & attempting to persuade does not mean painting a big red target sign on the back of your head.
Nitroadict: Nick. B: Just because I refer to myself as an voluntaryist doesn't my beliefs. And far as distancing myself from the anarchist movement, perhaps we should, I believe we're an entirely new movement! It's really kind of exciting when you think about it. There's really no need to distance one's self from anarchism when you are in the company of open-minded people and/or those who know what anarchism really is, as opposed to the company of those who buy into the assumptions & ignorance of a Statist society regarding anarchy. Seriously, how far is one going to get in the company of Statists when you describe yourself as a market-anarchist? I never really got far until I refined my argument to focus on the actual principles, not the label itself. To me, this involved shifting my label & avoiding red flag terms, which helps give my argument legitimacy to those who would normally just shake their heads, put their fingers in their ears, and just shout "LA LA LA LA NOT HEARING YOUR LOGIC". Sometimes, I don't need to do that though, & it's an intellectual relief whenever I do encounter someone open-minded enough to not have to slip my ideas under the radar, & use the term anarchsm.
There's really no need to distance one's self from anarchism when you are in the company of open-minded people and/or those who know what anarchism really is, as opposed to the company of those who buy into the assumptions & ignorance of a Statist society regarding anarchy. Seriously, how far is one going to get in the company of Statists when you describe yourself as a market-anarchist? I never really got far until I refined my argument to focus on the actual principles, not the label itself. To me, this involved shifting my label & avoiding red flag terms, which helps give my argument legitimacy to those who would normally just shake their heads, put their fingers in their ears, and just shout "LA LA LA LA NOT HEARING YOUR LOGIC". Sometimes, I don't need to do that though, & it's an intellectual relief whenever I do encounter someone open-minded enough to not have to slip my ideas under the radar, & use the term anarchsm.
Never looked at it that way before Nitroadict. But I think you're probably right!
Brainpolice:Actually I reject this conservative notion of a "natural elite". I think that the concept of a "natural elite" is all that statists have to fall back upon when the idea of democracy is worn threadbare and when the idea that humans are evil therefore we need humans in power to stop humans from being evil is evidently nonsensical. The fall-back rationale for a state at such a point is a "natural elite" who are inherently more fit to govern than everyone else.
When one considers that even monarchists had to suppress natural elites and appeal to the egalitarianism of the people, it's obvious that it would be silly to say that democracy is in any way compatible with the concept of natural elites. Democracy and the egalitarianism upon which it is founded stand in opposition to natural order and natural elites.
The problem with the leftists who are horrified by any notion of inequality can be seen by the fact that they can never refute the idea of natural elites without resorting to straw man. I've never claimed natural elites will government anybody, only to arbitrate between different grounds. Attack that if you will, but then you'd be attack market anarchism as a whole.
Brainpolice:You yourself have repeatedly rejected anarchism as a movement and philosophy, not just as a term.
I'm an anarchist in so far as I reject the current state and any monopoly on force. Further than that I advocate competing "governments" (in the sense that Nock for example used it). But I am sufficiently in touch with reality to realise that there will always be leaders and there will always be followers. If you want to deny this, feel free, but once again you'd be rejecting one of the foundations of the free market and Austrian economics.
None of this changes the fact that you posted a strawman in regards to Nitro.
Brainpolice:I disagree in that I think most people implicitly respect property rights in terms of behavior, regaurdless of their ideology.
I'm sorry to ask this yet again. But are you sure you've read La Boetie? Or to ask a different question, do you know how many people voted in the last election?
Brainpolice:That accusation comes from nowhere and is silly. I have a perfectly fine conception of the term "property rights" - I just so happen to realize that when a lot of people attack the concept of "property rights", they are not necessarily entirely attacking the same conception I hold, they have a different definition of their terms. This isn't orwellian, it's an understanding of the fact that people define things differently and hence semantic ambiguities will arise in debate.
No, you regard property rights as a term that applies to those you agree with but not to those that you disagree with. You twist the term, and said that different intepretations of it are allowable (but then proceeded to express horror at the thought of voluntary exclusion of communists, drug addicts, blacks, undesirables etc.). Which is wrong, unless there is unanimous agreement on property rights, or close to that, they're useless and the term isnmeaningless. Just like language in Orwell's masterpiece.
Brainpolice:Greater material prosperity for the masses is an egalitarian outcome. I share that prediction - and don't see how it's necessarily incompatible with egalitarianism.
No it's not. The wealth of the rich may exceed that of the poor by more in a free society than currently. I'm not say it's likely, it is however possible and remains something to be seen when we do succeed in abolishing the state. However the free market, and private property, are distincly anti egalitarian. You missed the point though, my point was that what I said was only a prediction to the same extent that "a free market will be more prosperous than an unfree market" is a prediction.
Brainpolice:This is your own prediction based on your own biases. Your prediction that people in society will not be fond of egalitarian outcomes is not particularly provable or rational. I find it silly that you assume that people will dominantly share your ideology in a free society.
No, it isn't. People will not be fond of the notion that people are all equal, because private property illustrates that this isn't so. People don't even have the same rights, and amongst those that do some possess many more positive qualities than others. If you can't see past the state imposed mediocrity don't blame me.
Brainpolice:I'm sorry, that claim is absurd. People do not desire egalitarian outcomes merely because the state exists. The existance of the state is not the only or primary cause of people's desire for egalitarian outcomes. I know this because I desire egalitarian outcomes and completely reject the state. There is no absolute connection between egalitarianism and statism.
They do. Although, that's not what I said. My claim was that people have not been shown that their ideas will fail completely. And as most people are too dull to follow long lines of reasoning they won't understand that absurdity of anarcho communism without seeing it first hands. You seem unable to refute my argument concering anarchocommunism, accordingly you obfuscate the truth with red herrings.
I hope you're joking when you say there is no relation between the two. I doubt it though. In denying private property (no truly private property exists) and voluntary exclusion, it is implied that we're all equal. As seen in the idea of one person one vote. Why do you think the state is so keen on wealth distribution from the rich to the poor? Because it thrives on egalitarianism.
Brainpolice:What specifically do you mean by "the libertines"?
For somebody who is so keen on using words in their original context I don't see how this is difficult? By the libertines I mean exactly that. The only other thing I suppose might be the band.
Brainpolice:If you're claiming that competition would competely eliminate this, you're once again uniformly superimposing your personal biases and preferances onto the concept of a free society.
No, I'm saying that people will prefer to live amongst civilised people than savages. I would have thought that was obvious.
Brainpolice:So long as there is a demand for "libertine" things, there will be "libertine" assocations. Everyone doesn't magically become a cultural conservative when the state dissapears.
No, not immediatly. But when they have to bear the responsibilities of their own actions things will start going in that direction.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Brainpolice:I'm not pandering to the left. There's no "left" to pander to here. I'm repeatedly clashing with conservative-libertarians.
Of course there are. Anyway, when did I say here?
Brainpolice:No, it doesn't. No government is consistantly consented to. Noone completely consents to the government as a whole, the government ultimately makes decisions regaurdless of their consent or lack thereof. You are misinterpreting La Boetie.
No, you just don't understand him (meanwhile posting strawmen and red herrings). Governments gain their legitimacy from the illusion that they're just. As long as the poor accept welfare they see it as just and so does everybody else. If the poor refused to voted and managed to muster the moral and intellectual strength to realised they're holding themselves in chains then they'd stop. As it is, it's far easier to vote money from others than to work for it.
Brainpolice:Do you realize that the idea that the government is based on the consent of the governed is a common statist arguement for legitimacy, by spreading the ideology that the government is voluntary in its basis? The rejection of precisely such an ideology of legitimacy is part of what lead me to become an anarchist to begin with! Isn't precisely what leads one to shift from minarchism to anarchism the realization that the state in fact isn't consistantly voluntary, that the state inherently violates voluntaryism? If the state IS in fact purely voluntary, then libertarianism should lead to a statist conclusion. Fortunately, it doesn't, because states are not voluntary.
You assume when I say government rests on consent that I mean uninimous consent. I think you know I meant that, so I'll just accept you're being pedantic. Otherwise you're confused and eager for conflict.
Brainpolice:Who doesn't vote.
The poor don't vote? That's news.
Brainpolice:Sorry, you're just using bad philosophy to reinforce your already existing distain for the poor. Blaming the poor for the state is absurd and not a very libertarian sentiment.
You're conflating libertarianism with socialist appeals to the emotion. I couldn't give a damn about the poor really.
Brainpolice:It is not really based on cultural factors, it's based on a shared opposition to state and corporate power. I'm not bending over backwards to make the ideoogies fit. The ideologies do fit. You just seem to cling to a warped view of the political spectrum in which "left" = bad in an absolute sense.
There's plenty of right libertarians who reject state and corporate power, and even the political process. Hoppe for example, I wonder why you're not too keen on him? And yes you're doing everything you can do defend "anarcho" communists who detest property rights.
Brainpolice:Obviously I disagree with your conservative interpretation of this, since I think that to a degree the tendency of youth to oppose authority is extremely healthy and necessary. Subservience isn't a healthy trait to cling to into adulthood.
Only, childish rejection of a natural order and authority isn't the opposite to subservience. It's a bad trait that needs to be kept down until the youth have matured sufficiently.
Brainpolice:Hell - we don't even have a clear consensus on property rights among ourselves!
It's clear enough, and can be dealth with through polycentrism.
Brainpolice:Again, you're confused about who specifically I advocate associating with.
No, I'm not. I just understand that people have an incorrect perception of what anarhcism entails and you wish to carry on using the word. You placate your leftist buddies. I on the otherhand recognise the strategic importance of dropping this word and finding a more appropriate one.
Brainpolice:My interpretation of this is that you wish to use your cultural preferances as a prerequisite to be part of the libertartian movement.
Finally, you figured something out. I suggest you read Hoppe's chapter in D:TGTF on this. You seem to be drifting from the original topic.
When one considers that even monarchists had to suppress natural elites and appeal to the egalitarianism of the people, it's obvious that it would be silly to say that democracy is in any way compatible with the concept of natural elites. Democracy and the egalitarianism upon which it is founded stand in opposition to natural order and natural elites. The problem with the leftists who are horrified by any notion of inequality can be seen by the fact that they can never refute the idea of natural elites without resorting to straw man. I've never claimed natural elites will government anybody, only to arbitrate between different grounds. Attack that if you will, but then you'd be attack market anarchism as a whole.
My point was that the concept of a "natural elite" can be and has been used as legitimacy for a state, on the basis that those in control of the state are more fit to govern than others. But in the sense of people being fit to rule others, I proclaim that noone is fit to do so. I'm not denying that different people are good at different things. I'm saying that noone is "superior" to the point of being fit to be a ruler.
I never stated otherwise. And actually Austrian economics has nothing to say about that.
I never made any statement about Nitro's character. I think some of you have a tendency to see straw men where they don't exist, when people are making general statements.
I'm sorry to repeat this again, but I believe you've grossly misinterpreted La Boetie as confirmation bias with respect to your elitist hatred for the commoner. Nothing about La Boetie's writting implies that people inherently violate property rights or that their political systems are actually voluntary.
I'm sorry, you've apparently yet to understand my actual points. You're attacking a strawman.
No it's not. The wealth of the rich may exceed that of the poor by more in a free society than currently.
That goes against the most obvious of economic principles. Mutual benefit is the normn in a free market.
However the free market, and private property, are distincly anti egalitarian.
No, they aren't. They can be used for egalitarian purposes and egalitarian forms of organization can exist within them. Free market /= your organizational preferance per se.
Once again, you completely fail to understand the point. When I say "egalitarian", I refer to a general tendency towards positive outcomes for people. That's it. Not pure equality of wealth or talent or whatever. As for equal rights, libertarianism inherently supports equal negative rights and is incoherant otherwise. As for state-imposed mediocrity, yes, this does occur. However, the outcome is not in fact egalitarian, it's net harmful to the masses.
I hope you're joking when you say there is no relation between the two. I doubt it though. In denying private property (no truly private property exists) and voluntary exclusion, it is implied that we're all equal. As seen in the idea of one person one vote. Why do you think the state is so keen on wealth distribution from the rich to the poor? Because it thrives on egalitarianism
I never said that there is no relation, I said there is no absolute relation. Desiring egalitarianism outcomes does not inherently make someone a statist per se, and it is impossible for the state to actually be egalitarian in nature, as it inherently is a power heirarchy.
The total abolition of all private property is an impossibility to begin with. Even communist states rely on some degree of private property in terms of the production within society necessary for it to leech off of.
The state does not, in its net effects, distribute wealth from the rich to the poor. The welfare state has in fact had the effect of increasing poverty - on top of the more corporatist measures which have the same effect.
No, I think you use the word as a stigmatizing reference to anyone who isn't a cultural conservative.
People aren't "savages" just because they aren't cultural conservatives. You dehumanize people.
I think a new name is in the spirit of praxeology. after all the point is to have people approach human action rationally. what better way than by using terms that people have no connotations or denotations that could screw up the message?
If we can truly get people to start from a blank slate Austrianism should win by default.
You're making an armchair psychoanalysis of an entire class that has no evidence to back it up. It hardly is the case that people only accept welfare out envy or a general support for the system. Your open hatred for the poor is disgusting.
Yes, the majority of the American population doesn't vote to begin with. Presumably, this includes the poor.
I have not made any appeals to emotion, and nothing I have said is necessarily socialist (unless you wish to argue that having any sense of empathy for the less fortunate is inherently "socialist"). But thanks for letting your true conservative colors shine bright - by actually confirming or enabling the idea that libertarians "couldn't give a damn about the poor". Yea, that kind of scrooge attitude will surely help win people over. Thanks for nullifying all the time spent trying to clarify that supporting free markets does NOT in fact make one lack empathy.
There's plenty of right libertarians who reject state and corporate power, and even the political process. Hoppe for example, I wonder why you're not too keen on him?
I'm not keen on Hoppe because his position on immigration is incoherant, his revisionism is far too soft on monarchy and his view of where libertarianism is on the political spectrum is warped.
And yes you're doing everything you can do defend "anarcho" communists who detest property rights.
No I'm not. I'm not even talking specifically about anarcho-communists, I've merely rejected a monocentric approach to libertarianism that regaurds "anarcho-capitalism" as its own category that is 100% independant from anarchism as such. It is you who has erected straw men here.
The use of terms like "natural order" can be highly misleading and rhetorical. Rejecting arbitrary authority and traditionalism is not childish or irrational.
I wish to clarify what anarchism actually is rather than yield to cultural cliches; what you are doing is actually perpetuating the incorrect perception of what anarchism entails. And you don't just advocate dropping a word, you seem to advocate dropping the anarchist movement.
Finally, you figured something out.
No, this was clear all along, and it's irrational and sectarian. Your conservative cultural preferances are not a prerequisite to being a libertarian. Stop superimposing cultural conservatism onto libertarianism in the attempt to conflate the two.
I suggest you read Hoppe's chapter in D:TGTF on this. You seem to be drifting from the original topic.
Ive already read the book from cover to cover multiple times. I don't have to read it again to be sure that I disagree with him.
Brainpolice:My point was that the concept of a "natural elite" can be and has been used as legitimacy for a state, on the basis that those in control of the state are more fit to govern than others. But in the sense of people being fit to rule others, I proclaim that noone is fit to do so. I'm not denying that different people are good at different things. I'm saying that noone is "superior" to the point of being fit to be a ruler.
Private property has been used to justify slavery, equality has been used to justify mass murder and the idea of prosperity has been used to justify government intervention in the economy. What's your point, that the state is evil and coopts perfectly acceptable and desirable ideas to justify its own actions? That's hardly groundbreaking, nor does it constitute a case against any of these ideas.
Actually, democracy and even monarchy work against natural elites. Both of them have to suppress the role of natural elites and pander to the egalitarianism of the common man in order to gain support. Whilst monarchies may have originally been an outgrowth of this natural institution, the moment they began to suppress other natural elites they promoted egalitarianism. This is funnily enough, what led to their downfall at the hands of democracy.
Brainpolice:I never stated otherwise. And actually Austrian economics has nothing to say about that.
Did you really just say that Austrian economics has nothing to say about the division of labour? Funny that you should level the same criticism againt Hoppe actually.
Brainpolice:I never made any statement about Nitro's character. I think some of you have a tendency to see straw men where they don't exist, when people are making general statements.
No you posted some strawman about anybody who disagrees with you not being an anarchist. Which, I suppose was correct in regards to me, but not to Nitroaddict.
Brainpolice:I'm sorry to repeat this again, but I believe you've grossly misinterpreted La Boetie as confirmation bias with respect to your elitist hatred for the commoner. Nothing about La Boetie's writting implies that people inherently violate property rights or that their political systems are actually voluntary.
I'll repeat myself since you don't really seem capable of hearing me the first time, tell me where you disagree:
As such, it follows that legitimacy is derived from the claim that the government can help the poor. The poor buy into this as a result of moral and intellectual weakness. If the poor rejected the state, and rejected welfare others would see the emporer without his clothes.
Brainpolice:I'm sorry, you've apparently yet to understand my actual points. You're attacking a strawman.
I have. Property rights are flexible and depend on the way in which one inteprets them. Accordingly many different ideologies may coincide and live next to one another. Actually, property rights would fail in their very meaning: to stop conflict and would be meaningless.
Brainpolice:That goes against the most obvious of economic principles. Mutual benefit is the normn in a free market.
And this somehow proves that one person may be very apt in putting scarce resources to benefit the many? Granted, it's unlikely. But if I recall correctly I said exactly that.
Brainpolice:No, they aren't. They can be used for egalitarian purposes and egalitarian forms of organization can exist within them. Free market /= your organizational preferance per se.
But yes they are. Private property clearly implies people are not equal. They are disctinct from one another, some will excell others will be mediocre. In any case all will be different, even in the rights they possess. How can private property be put to egalitarian uses?
Brainpolice:Once again, you completely fail to understand the point. When I say "egalitarian", I refer to a general tendency towards positive outcomes for people. That's it. Not pure equality of wealth or talent or whatever. As for equal rights, libertarianism inherently supports equal negative rights and is incoherant otherwise. As for state-imposed mediocrity, yes, this does occur. However, the outcome is not in fact egalitarian, it's net harmful to the masses.
At first I thought you might want to keep anarchism on account of using words according to their correct meaning. Obviously not. I don't really understand how equality can mean good results. Perhaps you mean equality is double plus good? No, libertarian doesn't support equal negative rights, a child does not have the same rights as an adult. But as you believe babies debate one another in the maternity section this discussion isn't going to be very fruitful, so let's not bother.
Brainpolice:I never said that there is no relation, I said there is no absolute relation. Desiring egalitarianism outcomes does not inherently make someone a statist per se, and it is impossible for the state to actually be egalitarian in nature, as it inherently is a power heirarchy.
You're just being pedantic now. And posting strawmen. Yes it is possible for one to be an anti statist egalitarian. We all live in the context of the state (unless you live in some anarchist colony you're not sharing with the rest of us, or you're MaxLiberty who believes wishing you were free makes it so) and my point was the state encourages egalitarianism.
And no, the state, the abolition of property rights (including self ownership) is the only way to establish some semblance of equaltiy amongst men, who would otherwise be disctinct and unequal.
Brainpolice:The total abolition of all private property is an impossibility to begin with. Even communist states rely on some degree of private property in terms of the production within society necessary for it to leech off of.
Of course it is. Which is why the definitions of communism/ socialism and capitalism are not helpful. I'd say that state communism is just private ownership of the means of production, albeit by the state. My point was simply that there is no completely private property anywhere.
Brainpolice:The state does not, in its net effects, distribute wealth from the rich to the poor. The welfare state has in fact had the effect of increasing poverty - on top of the more corporatist measures which have the same effect.
You're attacking a strawman. The state doesn't in its net effect distribute from the rich to the poor no. But it does distribute from some of the rich to the poor. And it does encourage egalitarianism in other way. Most of all it just encourages mediocrity.
Brainpolice:No, I think you use the word as a stigmatizing reference to anyone who isn't a cultural conservative.
So go ahead and think that, you'd be wrong. But then when do you give a damn about the definition of words when it doesn't suit you to?
Brainpolice:People aren't "savages" just because they aren't cultural conservatives.
You're evading the point and nit picking. But, anyway, they are.
Brainpolice:You dehumanize people.
No I don't, they do it to themselves.
Brainpolice:You're making an armchair psychoanalysis of an entire class that has no evidence to back it up. It hardly is the case that people only accept welfare out envy or a general support for the system. Your open hatred for the poor is disgusting.
I would argue that your love of all things mediocre is disgusting, especially when these are the same fools that imprison us, but let's not waste our time. As much as you would love to dismiss what I have to say as an armchair pyschoanalysis I'm going to have to ask you to do better than that. The fact is if you agree with La Boetie you have to agree with me for the sake of inconsistancy. If you don't, that's fine, but then we're going to have to go back a step.
So go on, refute what I said or concede the point and continue loving the poor regardless.
Brainpolice:Yes, the majority of the American population doesn't vote to begin with. Presumably, this includes the poor.
This is entirely different from saying the poor don't vote. Which is what you said earlier.
The poor still vote, the poor still advocate redistribution and as such they're culpable.
Brainpolice:I have not made any appeals to emotion, and nothing I have said is necessarily socialist (unless you wish to argue that having any sense of empathy for the less fortunate is inherently "socialist"). But thanks for letting your true conservative colors shine bright - by actually confirming or enabling the idea that libertarians "couldn't give a damn about the poor". Yea, that kind of scrooge attitude will surely help win people over. Thanks for nullifying all the time spent trying to clarify that supporting free markets does NOT in fact make one lack empathy.
You have made ad hoc arguments in their defence, with no rational foundation. If you want to provide it, go ahead. Actually you've made outright appeals to the emotion as well, so please don't bother denying it.
I've never made any attempts to hide my conservative colours, I'm very proud of them in fact. If there were a conservative flag I'd be sure to fly that one over my black flag. I'll take it as a compliment that you regard me as a spokesperson for the libertarian movement in saying I enable certain ideas. I do no such thing. As for winning people over, funny, I thought libertarians were against pandering to certain groups, and I thought libertarians generally frowned upon deceiving people and dishonesty in general. I guess you make an exception. Not that it makes any sense to win the poor over anyway. They're too comfortable with the system as it is and have nothing to really offer the movement anyway.
Brainpolice:I'm not keen on Hoppe because his position on immigration is incoherant, his revisionism is far too soft on monarchy and his view of where libertarianism is on the political spectrum is warped.
Hoppe isn't soft on monarchy, you just have some attachment to democracy because of its egalitarian nature. At least in regard to monarchy. If you accept the idea of private property, I don't really understand how you can disagree with Hoppe. Anyway, it boils down to cultural issues in the end.
Brainpolice:No I'm not. I'm not even talking specifically about anarcho-communists, I've merely rejected a monocentric approach to libertarianism that regaurds "anarcho-capitalism" as its own category that is 100% independant from anarchism as such. It is you who has erected straw men here.
You do seem to exclude inconvenient quotes ever so often. This is a strawman, I've never advocated what you said I have, I just (correctly) believe "capitalism" will prevail in the end. (Which you ignored).
Brainpolice:The use of terms like "natural order" can be highly misleading and rhetorical. Rejecting arbitrary authority and traditionalism is not childish or irrational.
Rejecting tradition for the sake of it is irrational. As for arbitrary authority, why exaclty is arbitrary? Because it serves a social function as well a biological one? Or because it suits you to call it "arbitrary"?
Brainpolice:I wish to clarify what anarchism actually is rather than yield to cultural cliches; what you are doing is actually perpetuating the incorrect perception of what anarchism entails. And you don't just advocate dropping a word, you seem to advocate dropping the anarchist movement.
THat sounds wonderful to me.Of course it must begin by dropping the word. You still haven't managed to defend keeping the word though, you've just veered off course. But there's no reason to adopt a word for the sake of it, if there was then we'd still be clinging to liberal, a far nicer word than anarchist. Just as counter productive though.
Brainpolice:Ive already read the book from cover to cover multiple times. I don't have to read it again to be sure that I disagree with him.
Then read it again until you get the point.
Brainpolice:No, this was clear all along
Oh good. At least I managed to get that across.
My point is that the concept is overwhelmingly just apologetics, an abuse of the connotation of the word "natural" to arbitrarily justify someone's authority.
Egalitarianism is hardly the only ideology that states can use and have used for legitimacy. One could just easily argue that states are dominantly reliant on some more "culturally conservative" things: religion, appeal to the family, racism, nationalism, and so on.
The fact of the matter is that the state in a modern democracy thrives off of cultural-identity conflict and class conflict among the masses, and it always cuts in both directions. There is nothing egalitarian about such divisiveness.
No. I was saying that Austrian economics has nothing to say about culture.
No, my point was misunderstood, and I clarified.
I'll repeat myself since you don't really seem capable of hearing me the first time, tell me where you disagree: the state derives its legitimacy from the illusion that it is either necessary or desirable, voting implies that one has bought into this illusion, a large number of the poor voted for Barack Obama (or other candidates) in the last election. As such, it follows that legitimacy is derived from the claim that the government can help the poor. The poor buy into this as a result of moral and intellectual weakness. If the poor rejected the state, and rejected welfare others would see the emporer without his clothes.
You oversimplify. It does not follow that the poor are actually represented by the government or that they in actual fact explicitly consent to whatever the government goes on to do. Neither is it necessarily the case that one is significantly one welfare because one is poor (or that the middle class and rich doesn't have its own welfare benefits and make use of "public" institutions).
Your claim that the poor are inherently morally or intellectually weak is just the inverse of marxist class psychology, which is absurd. Someone's economic status is not the inherent cause of their moral or intellectual worth. To totally disresgaurd environment and engage in such a mass-psychoanalysis of a class is ridiculous.
I'm sorry, that is a strawman. You misunderstand.
At first I thought you might want to keep anarchism on account of using words according to their correct meaning. Obviously not. I don't really understand how equality can mean good results.
Are you even paying attention anymore? I said "When I say "egalitarian", I refer to a general tendency towards positive outcomes for people. That's it. Not pure equality of wealth or talent or whatever." I'm not talking about equality.
No, libertarian doesn't support equal negative rights, a child does not have the same rights as an adult. But as you believe babies debate one another in the maternity section this discussion isn't going to be very fruitful, so let's not bother.
Even if we grant your exemption for children, libertarianism would still support equal negative rights for adults (and good luck finding an official "age of consent" - you can't). Rothbard, in "For A New Liberty" and "The Ethics of Liberty", supports UNIVERSAL NEGATIVE RIGHTS.
And I disagree with your exemption for children, since the implication would be that they are free game to be assaulted, murdered and stolen from.
You're really lapsing strongly into a conservative position here. Libertarianism favors equal negative rights. If it didn't, it wouldn't be libertarianism.
Private property clearly implies that there is an owner (or set of owners) with decision-making power. That owner or set of owners, however, can decide to decide that the property can be used in a "public" manner to one degree or another. This isn't about equality, it's about how one decides to use private property. Private property does not by definition mean that it is not shared or given. Private property is not entirely incompatible with inclusivity as such.
Libertarianism inherently recognizes equal negative rights - individual sovereignty applies to human beings, not only a certain class. Libertarianism delegitimizes the state through the analysis that it inherently violates the natural law of equal liberty.
Private property can be put to egalitarian uses through voluntary acts of charity and mutual aid.
I would argue that your love of all things mediocre is disgusting, especially when these are the same fools that imprison us, but let's not waste our time.
I have no "love of all things mediocre". I just don't see how conservative elitism squares with the reality of the situation, which is overwhelmingly to the deteriment of most people's well-being.
The fact is if you agree with La Boetie you have to agree with me for the sake of inconsistancy. If you don't, that's fine, but then we're going to have to go back a step.
What's in question is your interpretation of La Boetie. Many others have read La Boetie and come to different conclusions. I'm under no requirement to agree with your interpretation of La Boetie.
I don't "love the poor". I just don't accept an armchair demonization of them.
This is entirely different from saying the poor don't vote. Which is what you said earlier. The poor still vote, the poor still advocate redistribution and as such they're culpable.
Such sweeping generalities are incorrect and dangerous. The fact that someone is poor doesn't mean that they necessarily vote, and it doesn't necessarily mean they vote a certain way, as some kind of law of nature. Be a methodological individualist man, come on!
You seem to have many correlation-causation issues.
As for winning people over, funny, I thought libertarians were against pandering to certain groups, and I thought libertarians generally frowned upon deceiving people and dishonesty in general. I guess you make an exception. Not that it makes any sense to win the poor over anyway. They're too comfortable with the system as it is and have nothing to really offer the movement anyway.
I don't decieve people, I express exactly what my sincere viewpoints are.
And it's silly to just write off entire segments of the population as a whole like that. The people that I'm thinking of are far from comfortable with the system, and too a degree, virtually noone is.
I've never made any attempts to hide my conservative colours, I'm very proud of them in fact. If there were a conservative flag I'd be sure to fly that one over my black flag. I'll take it as a compliment that you regard me as a spokesperson for the libertarian movement in saying I enable certain ideas.
No, I regaurd you as a spokeperson for the conservative movement when you enable conservative ideas, which is not the same thing as the libertarian movement and never has been.
Hoppe isn't soft on monarchy, you just have some attachment to democracy because of its egalitarian nature.
Actually I have zero attachements to political democracy, that is a straw man. I reject majoritarianism and I reject representative democracy as a sham. I merely see no reason to be so passive about monarchy, which is a horrible system of oppression like all other political systems.
If you accept the idea of private property, I don't really understand how you can disagree with Hoppe. Anyway, it boils down to cultural issues in the end.
Private property /= cultural conservatism. Private property CAN overlap with cultural conservatism, but cultural conservatism is not necessary for there to be private property, and private property does not inherently imply cultural conservatism.
Rejecting tradition for the sake of it is irrational.
I never said that I oppose tradition for the sake of it.
The point is that traditionalism, as in the absolute clinging to what clearly is a relic, is irrational and it's inherently primitivist or romantic in nature.
As for arbitrary authority, why exaclty is arbitrary? Because it serves a social function as well a biological one? Or because it suits you to call it "arbitrary"?
Absolute decision-making power over other people's lives is not something to take lightly.
THat sounds wonderful to me.Of course it must begin by dropping the word.
There is no need to abandon words, there is a need to define concepts and their relations.
No, I strongly disagree with the point. Hoppe's conservatism is a deviation.
I like Austro-libertaian
austro-meaning free market anarchism, the austrian school, praxeology, mises, Rothbard's works, an intellectual prefix
libertarian-non-interventionism abroad, social libertarian, freedom from politics
do we get free cheezeburger in socielism?
Brainpolice:I have no "love of all things mediocre". I just don't see how conservative elitism squares with the reality of the situation, which is overwhelmingly to the deteriment of most people's well-being
Because not realising that the poor, to an extent, are giving the state legitimacy will lead to tactical errors and misplaced sympathy.
Brainpolice:I don't "love the poor". I just don't accept an armchair demonization of them.
And I don't accept your armchair demonization of my armchair demonization. Go back and refute it. Or concede the point.
Brainpolice:Such sweeping generalities are incorrect and dangerous. The fact that someone is poor doesn't mean that they necessarily vote, and it doesn't necessarily mean they vote a certain way, as some kind of law of nature. Be a methodological individualist man, come on!
Brainpolice:I don't decieve people, I express exactly what my sincere viewpoints are.
No you said we should pander to the poor to gain their support, which implies insincerity.
Brainpolice:And it's silly to just write off entire segments of the population as a whole like that.
And, another strawman.
Brainpolice:which is not the same thing as the libertarian movement and never has been.
I guess some of us have work to do then.
Brainpolice:. I merely see no reason to be so passive about monarchy, which is a horrible system of oppression like all other political systems.
And, nobody has been. Hoppe has merely stated that it is a better system than democracy. Which you can attempt to refute, if you want. Otherwise stop the strawmen.
Brainpolice:Private property /= cultural conservatism. Private property CAN overlap with cultural conservatism, but cultural conservatism is not necessary for there to be private property, and private property does not inherently imply cultural conservatism.
Yes it does, once again I'll refer you to Hoppe's chapter in D:TGTF.
Brainpolice:My point is that the concept is overwhelmingly just apologetics, an abuse of the connotation of the word "natural" to arbitrarily justify someone's authority.
You don't really have a point. Just knee jerks reactions to anything that offends your egalitarianism.
Stop stating it like it's a fact, or prove it. As you've been unable to do the latter you're going to have stop with the former. Furthermore you're going to have to prove what's wrong with authority in the form of natural elites, seeing as it is entirely natural when one takes into account the uneven distribution of certain qualities amongst humans.
Brainpolice:Egalitarianism is hardly the only ideology that states can use and have used for legitimacy. One could just easily argue that states are dominantly reliant on some more "culturally conservative" things: religion, appeal to the family, racism, nationalism, and so on.
The state can pretend to support religion in the family, yes. You'd be correct in saying that. However, it can only ever coopt and weaken these two pre state institutions, so I fail to see how this has any significance. In fact, this is just a red herring.
Racism and national can be used, but for obvious reasons democratic states tend to avoid using them as a justification. Nor can they be used by themselves to justify the state, whereas egalitarianism can.
Anyway, you missed my point. First I was merely showing that the idea of natural elites is not compitable with statism, so to claim that states use the concept of natural elites in their defense is silly, since they always will and always must do everything in their power to suppress them. Secondly,egalitarianism is distinctly statist. Private property is inherently inegalitarian, hence it follows that the negation of private property, the state, is egalitarian.
Brainpolice:The fact of the matter is that the state in a modern democracy thrives off of cultural-identity conflict and class conflict among the masses, and it always cuts in both directions.
No, democracy thrives off egalitarianism and its corollary: redistribution.
Brainpolice:No. I was saying that Austrian economics has nothing to say about culture.
I don't think that it's strictly true that we can't use praxeology to analyze it, but as it's neither here nor there I'm going to leave it at this.
Brainpolice: You oversimplify. It does not follow that the poor are actually represented by the government or that they in actual fact explicitly consent to whatever the government goes on to do. Neither is it necessarily the case that one is significantly one welfare because one is poor (or that the middle class and rich doesn't have its own welfare benefits and make use of "public" institutions). Your claim that the poor are inherently morally or intellectually weak is just the inverse of marxist class psychology, which is absurd. Someone's economic status is not the inherent cause of their moral or intellectual worth. To totally disresgaurd environment and engage in such a mass-psychoanalysis of a class is ridiculous.
Wait, when did I say that the poor are actually represented? That's just a silly strawman. The opposite is true, I agree with that. There's a good reason the poor are poor, they're less intelligent than the wealthy. You might not like it, and before you post some strawman, it isn't always true. But large it is, the stupid rich and the intelligent rich can lose and gain wealth respectively, perhaps economic mobility is not what it would be in a free market, but society isn't divided into castes. Hence, it doesn't make sense to think that the poor could outsmart the rich via the ballot box.
The rest is another strawman (you are rather keen on them), I've said neither that all the poor are morally and intellectually bankrupt nor that environment doesn't play a part. Not all of the poor are morally bankrupt because there are many minorities, the less wealthy one, that shun welfare and if a member of the minority should accept it they would be frowned upon significantly by the community.
Nonetheless, a vast majority of the poor do accept welfare and have no problems with voting for it. We're getting sidetracked here though but I'll continue. Very few poor individuals have any problem with welfare and seem to assume that as a result of having less money they are entitled to some of that of the more wealthy amongst society. At the very least very few of them except those of certain minorities have any issues with accepting welfare. They'd rather take money from the government than go out and earn it themselves. Moreover, they're too dull to realise, through long chains on deductive reasoning, that by accepting this welfare they're hurting themselves more than anybody else. Or, to put it more succintly they're morally and intellectual weak.
As for your second issue about me allegedly dismissing the environment in all of this. Well, you simply can't say that this is purely the result of the environment since that would beg the question, and as I wouldn't go so far to say that this is entirely the result of their dullness or the fact they're morally bankrupt (many of them anyway), we're going to have to settle somewhere in the middle. The fact is that we do live in a market economy, there are vast amounts of government intervention to be sure, but many poor people rise out of poverty and the rich occasionally end up losing large sums of money. At the end of the day, the poor are often poor because they're unskilled, this often entails a lack of intelligence. But I won't deny that through public schooling, democracy and many other measures the government keeps them down.
Back to my actual point though: if the poor did not accept forced charity and the poor bothered to realise that the government is the institution holding them down, not private property. They wouldn't vote, if they didn't vote and if they rejected the government far fewer people would see it as just. As I said, government rests on consent (not unanimous), the poor make up a large portion of the population, the poor view the government as just. What's so difficult about this? Why do you keep avoiding this point and posting red herrings.
Brainpolice:I'm sorry, that is a strawman. You misunderstand.
No, you said people with different conceptions of property rights could live by one another. Don't take my word for it:
BP:In order to be a voluntaryist, one doesn't have to accept the legitimacy of private property.
In which case, property rights would be meaningless. Now, I'm going to have the enjoyment of watching you backpeddle.
Brainpolice:I said "When I say "egalitarian", I refer to a general tendency towards positive outcomes for people.
So what you're saying is egalitarianism is "double plus good". You're essentially using the word egalitarian to mean good, I wonder if you might have any agenda in doing this (pandering to the left and your own sentiments that favour equality)? In which case from now on whenever I say "cultural conservatism", "inequality" and "voluntary exclusion", I mean "wonderful", "great" and "brilliant".
Brainpolice:Even if we grant your exemption for children, libertarianism would still support equal negative rights for adults (and good luck finding an official "age of consent" - you can't). Rothbard, in "For A New Liberty" and "The Ethics of Liberty", supports UNIVERSAL NEGATIVE RIGHTS
That's funny, I don't remember saying I needed an official age of consent. What's also quite amusing is your blatant appeal to authority, actually if you read Rothbard's Kid Lib or introduction to the La Boetie's book (remember, the one you say you've read?) you'd see that does favour using violence against children because they're not capable of rational thought.
And no, even this doesn't imply equal negative rights for adults. Some adults, such as primitives, are not capable of rational argumentation and cannot be brought peacefully into the division of labour. Moreover, they have no conception of property rights nor any enforcable claim.
Brainpolice:And I disagree with your exemption for children, since the implication would be that they are free game to be assaulted, murdered and stolen from.
No, as children have the potential that would still be wrong. Their guardians would have temporary, limited property rights that are not able to be used in any way that would limit their ability to reach the age where rational argumentation is possible, which means they cannot murder them or severly assault them. In fact, the parents don't just have the right to do this, they have the obligation to do it.
Moreover if the child is being abused he can run away and the parents cannot stop them.
Brainpolice:Private property clearly implies that there is an owner (or set of owners) with decision-making power.
Which is distinctly inegalitarian (unless you mean egalitarian = good).
Brainpolice:That owner or set of owners, however, can decide to decide that the property can be used in a "public" manner to one degree or another
Inegalitarian.
Brainpolice:Private property can be put to egalitarian uses through voluntary acts of charity and mutual aid.
What do you think charity is? One party helping another. One party is clearly in a postion of authority in regards to the other. One is dependant on the other.
GilesStratton: BP:In order to be a voluntaryist, one doesn't have to accept the legitimacy of private property. (Taken from the anarcho socialist topic) In which case, property rights would be meaningless. Now, I'm going to have the enjoyment of watching you backpeddle.
I disagree; wouldn't the said voluntaryist who doesn't support private property revert to a "social" voluntaryist? I thought property rights were fundamental to Voluntaryism? I guess this page was wrong then: http://www.voluntaryist.com/fundamentals/introduction.php
Nitroadict: GilesStratton: BP:In order to be a voluntaryist, one doesn't have to accept the legitimacy of private property. (Taken from the anarcho socialist topic) In which case, property rights would be meaningless. Now, I'm going to have the enjoyment of watching you backpeddle. I disagree; wouldn't the said voluntaryist who doesn't support private property revert to a "social" voluntaryist? I thought property rights were fundamental to Voluntaryism? I guess this page was wrong then: http://www.voluntaryist.com/fundamentals/introduction.php
I don't quite understand. Was that aimed at me or BP and could you rephrase it more clearly?
Sorry to be a pain.
GilesStratton: Nitroadict: GilesStratton: BP:In order to be a voluntaryist, one doesn't have to accept the legitimacy of private property. (Taken from the anarcho socialist topic) In which case, property rights would be meaningless. Now, I'm going to have the enjoyment of watching you backpeddle. I disagree; wouldn't the said voluntaryist who doesn't support private property revert to a "social" voluntaryist? I thought property rights were fundamental to Voluntaryism? I guess this page was wrong then: http://www.voluntaryist.com/fundamentals/introduction.php I don't quite understand. Was that aimed at me or BP and could you rephrase it more clearly? Sorry to be a pain.
Yea, I could've quoted that better, admitelly. I was referring to BP. BP said that one does not need to accept private property as legitimate in order to be a Voluntaryist, where I think accepting private property might be required in order to be a consistent Voluntaryist (i.e. if one doesn't believe in private property & violates property of someone who does believe in private property, this kind of goes against Voluntaryist as the said Voluntaryist who "violates" said private property risks becoming coercive). Everything I've read regarding Voluntaryism, & what I know, seems to support that, or at least doesn't implicitly say otherwise. That doesn't make me automatically correct, of course. Annoyingly, this seems to go back to the possibility of a meta system as a possible means of resolving the conflict, I suppose.
I never claimed otherwise. I've merely disagreed with your sweeping demonization of a class.
I never said that. The straw men here are your own.
In the process of "merely stating that it is a better system than democracy", he has belittled its problems and dangers. He paints a rosy picture of it.
You can repeatedly tell me to read Hoppe (which I've already done) until you are blue in the face, but it doesn't change the fact that private property does not inherently equal or require cultural conservatism. This is nothing but a reflection of your personal preferances and culture and has nothing to do with libertarianism in general. You're writting off half the libertarian movement.
I'll repeat my statement: "Private property CAN overlap with cultural conservatism, but cultural conservatism is not necessary for there to be private property, and private property does not inherently imply cultural conservatism." There is nothing you can say to refute this other than to basically insist on your personal cultural preferances as an absolute norm, which is absurd.
I don't want to get dragged into another one of these debates, but I'll just mention that it's incorrect to say private property implies cultural conservatism. Hoppe does argue that for any long-lived libertarian society it'll be necessary to embrace such a culture, and he does argue that private property is strictly inegalitarian in that owners tend to be far more discriminating as to whom they deal with (because their own resources are at risk now), but that certainly does not mean, by itself, that it implies cultural conservatism. That'd be up to the owners and their preferences. Hoppe is not saying all enclaves based on private property will be culturally conservative; just the most successful ones.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
No, I'm making a perfectly valid point that doesn't have anything to do with egalitarianism and has everything to do with the consistant application of libertarianism - there is no "natural elite" in the sense of a "natural elite" of people fit to be rulers. If there were, libertarianism (which recogizesthe individual sovereignty of people in general, hence rejecting any inconsistancy in the application thereof) is false by default.
I'm talking specifically about political authority. Noone is a "natural elite" in this sense, because noone has a legitimate claim to political authority (at least in the statist sense of the term).
Not really - I'm just applying your very same line of argument to other things, and now you're hypocritically backpeddling when the things in question might be things you personally like. The fact of the matter is that through the bulk of history, the state has relied heavily on religion for its legitimacy. It's only in the past few hundred years that this has changed significantly.
Nationalism is used in democracies all the time; each democracy is partially dependant on its own sense of nationalism. And nationalism and racism can be and have been used to justify states. Nationalism is one of the most fundamental ideologies that states can manipulate, by appealing to people's sense of loyalty to regions. You're simply wrong.
First I was merely showing that the idea of natural elites is not compitable with statism, so to claim that states use the concept of natural elites in their defense is silly, since they always will and always must do everything in their power to suppress them.
I was showing that the idea of natural elites easily can be used as an argument for the legitimacy of statism, by claiming those in the state to BE the "natural elite". This isn't irrelevant. Obviously you define the "natural elite" as being outside of the state, but that doesn't mean that the concept of a "natural elite" can't be and hasn't in fact been used to justify the power of states and those in patronage with them.
Are you just going to brush off my point about conflict entirely? Are you denying that politics relies on identity-conflict? I don't see what there is to disagree about!
I'm sorry, you've conflated two related yet not necessarily directly correlated concepts: redistribution and democracy. Redistribution is a particular type of state policy that exists in one form or another in ALL states. All states are redisitributive by their very nature. Secondly, democracy does not in actual fact lead to egalitarian distribution - all you have to do is look around yourself to see that.
Secondly,egalitarianism is distinctly statist. Private property is inherently inegalitarian, hence it follows that the negation of private property, the state, is egalitarian.
We've already been over this. I don't know how many times I have to repeat the same clarifications to you, because your generalizations are incorrect. Egalitariansm is not statist by definition (one can be an egalitarian anti-statist), and the state is not egalitarian, such a claim is blatantly absurd. The state does not represent equality, it is a power heirarchy! A political heirarchy is not egalitarian in nature, no matter how much it panders to egalitarian sentiments to justify itself. All states are predicated on economic and power inequality, and they do not make things in society more equal.
There's a good reason the poor are poor, they're less intelligent than the wealthy.
Once again, this classist elitism is indefensible and ridiculous. It does not necessarily follow from the fact that someone is poor that they are poor because they are less intelligent or capable, and it does not necessarily follow from the fact that someone is rich that they are more intelligent and capable. Some people are born into poverty, some people are born into wealth. Some people are negatively effected by environmental conditions, some people are positively effected by legal privileges. And correlation does not equal causation. To completely overlook the effect of the political system and intergenerational issues, and just act like whatever the status quo happens to be is purely based on merit, is naive. Your class analysis is no better than Marx's; you've just reversed his class roles.
But large it is, the stupid rich and the intelligent rich can lose and gain wealth respectively, perhaps economic mobility is not what it would be in a free market, but society isn't divided into castes. Hence, it doesn't make sense to think that the poor could outsmart the rich via the ballot box.
The "stupid rich" are constantly being bailed out by the government with billions of dollars (from the poor and middle classes) whenever they fail. The poor, in comparison, can declare bankrupcy or go on a welfare system that amounts to chump change and stagnation.
Nonetheless, a vast majority of the poor do accept welfare and have no problems with voting for it.
You have your facts wrong. The vast majority of the poor are not on welfare.
Very few poor individuals have any problem with welfare and seem to assume that as a result of having less money they are entitled to some of that of the more wealthy amongst society. At the very least very few of them except those of certain minorities have any issues with accepting welfare. They'd rather take money from the government than go out and earn it themselves. Moreover, they're too dull to realise, through long chains on deductive reasoning, that by accepting this welfare they're hurting themselves more than anybody else. Or, to put it more succintly they're morally and intellectual weak.
There's no way for you to know the specific mental processes of people in this way.
As I said, government rests on consent (not unanimous), the poor make up a large portion of the population, the poor view the government as just. What's so difficult about this? Why do you keep avoiding this point and posting red herrings.
I disagree. No government rests on consent. Only asquiescance.
No need to backpeddle, since you clearly have not understood what I'm saying yet, despite the fact that it has been explained in depth.
I don't favor "equality" like a communist does, I've repeatedly made the point that I'm not talking about absolute equality, I'm talking about mutual aid for those on the lower rung. You're misrepresenting me again.
I think that Rothbard's views on children were incorrect.
I'm sorry, this is just you speaking from your own cultural bias to deny the rights of a group of people you don't like. Your claim that such people are incapable of rational argumentation (mostly due to cultural walls to the extent that this is true) is ridiculous. Furthermore, the idea that one must have a conception of property rights to have any rights at all is ridiculous. One could argue that the natives in America had no concept of property rights and use this to justify just taking all of their land. The problem is that in actual fact they do have property that they actively occupied and labored upon. The criteria for just appropriation of property doesn't go out the window just because a certain culture has its own customs that you don't like. Sharing your culture is not a prerequisite to having rights.
Once again, you're lapsing to a conservative position that is not libertarian in nature, a conservative position which justifies colonialism and land theft.
No, as children have the potential that would still be wrong.
Then they DO have some rights! You can't have it both ways.
Their guardians would have temporary, limited property rights that are not able to be used in any way that would limit their ability to reach the age where rational argumentation is possible, which means they cannot murder them or severly assault them. In fact, the parents don't just have the right to do this, they have the obligation to do it.
What age is this where rational argumentation becomes possible? There is no such age.
GilesStratton:Nonetheless we do favour individuals with authority, in the form of a natural elite,
When one considers that even monarchists had to suppress natural elites and appeal to the egalitarianism of the people,
The problem with the leftists who are horrified by any notion of inequality can be seen by the fact that they can never refute the idea of natural elites without resorting to straw man.
've never claimed natural elites will government anybody, only to arbitrate between different grounds.
But I am sufficiently in touch with reality to realise that there will always be leaders and there will always be followers.
If you want to deny this, feel free, but once again you'd be rejecting one of the foundations of the free market and Austrian economics.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Jon Irenicus: Hoppe is not saying all enclaves based on private property will be culturally conservative; just the most successful ones.
This is more or less what I was saying. If it seemed otherwise it was more than likely because I was being antagonistic towards BP.
Jon Irenicus:Hoppe is not saying all enclaves based on private property will be culturally conservative; just the most successful ones.
Juan: Jon Irenicus:Hoppe is not saying all enclaves based on private property will be culturally conservative; just the most successful ones. Which is just one more baseless assertion. What's the objective and praxeological measure of 'success' by the way ?
Wealth.
I've got an idea. Why don't you try reading Hoppe before you rant about him? Or is he too bourgeois for you or something like that?
Which is just one more baseless assertion. What's the objective and praxeological measure of 'success' by the way ?
No, no more baseless than anything you assert. Anyway. there is no need for such an objective measure. If the goal is longevity of the society in question, one has a hypothetical measure to work with. Problem solved.
Juan:Fine. Now it's obvious that the in a free-market the most wealthy people would be the ones better at running businesses. Why on earth would these people be also 'cultural conservatives' ? Hint: they won't.
Because being a successful entrepreneur in regard the buisness of maintaining towns will no doubt be profitable. Which towns will be more desirable to live in?
Hint: those note populated by savages.
Because being a successful entrepreneur in regard the buisness of maintaining towns will no doubt be profitable. Which towns will be more desirable to live in? Hint: those note populated by savages.
People are not "savages" by virtue of not being strict cultural conservatives.
I've got an idea. Why don't you try reading Hoppe before you rant about him?
GilesStratton: Juan:Fine. Now it's obvious that the in a free-market the most wealthy people would be the ones better at running businesses. Why on earth would these people be also 'cultural conservatives' ? Hint: they won't. Because being a successful entrepreneur in regard the buisness of maintaining towns will no doubt be profitable. Which towns will be more desirable to live in? Hint: those note populated by savages.
The argument over which lifestyles in a stateless will perpetuate seems rather pointless to me :\
Jon Irenicus:No, no more baseless than anything you assert. Anyway. there is no need for such an objective measure.
If the goal is longevity of the society in question, one has a hypothetical measure to work with.
Problem solved.
Nitroadict:The argument over which lifestyles in a stateless will perpetuate seems rather pointless to me :\