History

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

scineram — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:21:35 GMT

filc:

Well from now on any minarchist who asks me to cite an example of a market anarchy beyond the one we already have I'll ask them to cite me an example of a large democracy voting in minarchy.

To which I reply I am not a democrat.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Peter Sidor — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:25:12 GMT

Cabal:
I'm not sure if this is precisely what you're looking for, but it may be relevant? It seems to suggest 'gross' decline in post-war government size, though at the same time it seems to concede that pre to post-war, the 'net' size of government did indeed increase. Anyway, a fairly interesting read.

The 1946 Voter Revolt Against Government Regulation

It looks like this is the closest thing to an answer. A little sad.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

filc — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:39:42 GMT

Well from now on any minarchist who asks me to cite an example of a market anarchy beyond the one we already have I'll ask them to cite me an example of a large democracy voting in minarchy.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

filc — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:07:58 GMT

Ivan Ivanov:
By the way it's sort of funny how this whole episode is handled in the Polish texbooks. School children are hammered every day with how bad this aristocratic democarcy was, because all the nobled voted for all sorts of priviledges for themselves, yet no one EVER makes the connection to the current democracy, and how unions, corporations and other interest groups push for priviledges for themselves.

That is a humorous observation.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

filc — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:06:38 GMT

Southern:
Is this a challenge to those who believe in minarchy or those who believe in democracy?

Perhaps both, sorry to be vague. I really think this could end up being a very good argument to both minarchists and democratic worshipers alike. One thing though is I don't want to be called a hipocrit from a classic argument I use to statists, arguing from ignorance. They may argue back that just because it's never transpired doesn't mean it's not possible. I use this argument as well as an a defense for anarchy. Many people argue that the state has just always been, and therefore it's enough proof to believe that the state always must be.

Still I think historically speaking minarchists have had FAR more chances for their system to shrink government over our method of individual secession. As it stands we are not freely allowed to individiualy secede. Every single election which increases the size of government is further evidence that democracy is incapable of shrinking the size of government. It may be technically possible but it seems to be highly unlikely.

I want to explore the topics on this thread as I think it could be a very serious thorn for both minarchists and democracy worshipers alike.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Southern — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:58:33 GMT

Marko:

Southern:

The weakest position that a minarchist who believes in democracy has taken may not be minarchy. It might be his faith in mob rule.

Oh how I wish democracy as we know it were mob rule. I`m afraid it`s far worse.

Very true.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Marko — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:45:49 GMT

Southern:

The weakest position that a minarchist who believes in democracy has taken may not be minarchy. It might be his faith in mob rule.

Oh how I wish democracy as we know it were mob rule. I`m afraid it`s far worse.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Southern — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:40:17 GMT

filc:

Libertarian_for_Life:
I can get plenty of examples where people actually believed that voting gave them control over limiting their government.

Well i want to use this as a challenge to mincharists. Beleiving they shrunk the government does not mean they did. I want want some type of impirical evidence which proves the government's size actually decreased. This should be a fairly easy thing to measure with the common economic tools we presently have.

Are you all sure there is no example, not even a freakish one where by accident a government shrunk in size due to voting? I'm talking in aggregate of coarse, not in small isolated examples.

Is this a challenge to those who believe in minarchy or those who believe in democracy? In the past, I think those who believed in government as a neccessary evil did not delude themselves in thinking that voting and democracy would stop the growth or shrink government. It seems many believed that armed conflict was neccessary from time to time to keep 'em honest. I believe that, in fact, those minarchists feared democracy and attempted to create a government where popular vote was counter balanced by other mechanisms. The weakest position that a minarchist who believes in democracy has taken may not be minarchy. It might be his faith in mob rule.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Marko — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:14:44 GMT

The Late Andrew Ryan:
Around 1830 where Englabd repealed the corn laws and became a nearly free market. The entire classical liberal movment

The fundamental question to me is were such measures passed because the right people were voted in. Or were they passed to appease the grumbling populace and would have therefore been introduced regardless of who actually held power.

I`ll remind you that Bismarck created the German welfare state and it was not because he was a social democrat.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

nandnor — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:10:35 GMT

nirgrahamUK:

I'm a little hazy and maybe there's nothing in it, but perhaps check out Estonia?

Aaahhh no!!

We have the left wing parties who raise taxes, and the right wing parties who raise taxes and support war. Right wing guys lowered income tax a bit during boom but now after bust the total taxation level is at its highest ever, with the right-wing government slapping on new taxes day and night.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

wilderness — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:58:55 GMT

EinarFridgeirs:

Sweden and Iceland... The EU may be on the verge of going federal right now, with all the negative connotations that brings, but IMO the EU process has done more for economic freedom in Europe than any other entity.

This thread was about political parties being voted in to shrink government. Not for the government's own interests to shrink to be included in a MUCH larger government. That's not a shrink. That's a get the secret password to enter into the even bigger government than ever before.

Define liberty.

Define free market.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

EinarFridgeirs — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:41:02 GMT

Sweden and Iceland both successfully shrunk their government in the early 90s. Not all the way down to a minarchist position, but there's no doubt that at least here in Iceland there has been a lot more room for private enterprise in the last 15 years than at any time before that, going all the way back to the establishment of the republic in 1945. For most of that era we had strict price controls, import/export controls, government bureaus that allocated investment etc...we were probably the most centrally controlled of any of the NATO countries with the possible exception of Turkey.

Ironically, a lot of those government restrictions and bureaus had to be relaxed or abolished so we could comply with the requirements for entry into the Eurozone. The EU may be on the verge of going federal right now, with all the negative connotations that brings, but IMO the EU process has done more for economic freedom in Europe than any other entity.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

The Late Andrew Ryan — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:21:38 GMT

Around 1830 where Englabd repealed the corn laws and became a nearly free market. The entire classical liberal movment

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Marko — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:22:10 GMT

Dondoolee:

But say the Brits allowed Singapore to leave the Empire due to a democratic vote, does that not at least mathmaticaly decrease the size of the UK govt?

Yes, but did the Brits allow Singapore to leave because of democratic input of the parties within the UK? Was there a party that people in England voted for, because its platform was to let Singapore go free?

filc:

Always thought of Monarchy governments as being much smaller in nature and democratic states being much larger. This is coming entirely out of my rear though. I have not done any research to come to this conclusion, just assumed. Thanks for the input, it may be worth looking into if what you say is true.

What happened was monarchs built professional buerocracies to allow them to marginalise the aristocracy, the clergy and the towns. Up until the buerocracy grew so large that the monarch became its captive and was marginalised himself. Until he was in most places just knocked off or in others made into a powerless figurehead. So it is generally true, if only because a monarchy tends to be characteristic of places that have not jet developed a strong professional buerocracy.

Re: I am looking for a historical or present example..

Ivan Ivanov — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:45:04 GMT

filc:

Marko:

Well the Polish noble assembly suceeded in completely stripping the king of his powers. But it did not exactly result in less government. The powers were just transfered onto the nobles, and the lot of the serfs was actually made worse than it had been. That is all I can think of.

Is this a democratic example?

Well, it was democracy for the nobles, they had their own parliament, but they weren't vored into it.

And like Marko said, it's really not that good an example anyway, it's sort of like if Congress stripped the president of his powers, and transfered them onto itself.

By the way it's sort of funny how this whole episode is handled in the Polish texbooks. School children are hammered every day with how bad this aristocratic democarcy was, because all the nobled voted for all sorts of priviledges for themselves, yet no one EVER makes the connection to the current democracy, and how unions, corporations and other interest groups push for priviledges for themselves.