The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
The lesson being, people chose the criteria for rankings mostly on who they want to come out on top.
Newsweek's top 10
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Stratofortress
Warlord
jst666 said:
Money beign private property, result of our labors, shall not be violated.
"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort....This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own." - James Madison (1792)
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
@Stratofortress: Stating "thou shalt" commandments without any justification beyond a quote by some dead guy is not particularly convincing unless the reader accepts you, or the person you're quoting, as a moral authority.
Stratofortress
Warlord
Minarchism, sometimes clumsily called minimal statism, is the view of civics that government should be as small as possible. However, minarchists often disagree on just how small that is.
Supporters usually argue that anarchism is naive and goes too far towards simplicity, while libertarianism is often too allowing of vested interests, and that what they call minarchy continues traditions of classical liberal philosophy in their original form.
Radical minarchists usually agree that government should be restricted to its "minimal" or "night-watchman" state functions of government (courts, police, prisons, defence forces). Some other minarchists include in the role of government the management of essential common infrastructure (roads, money); some, by what is sometimes reproached to them as a slippery slope, include quite a lot in such essential infrastructure (schools, hospitals, social security). Actually, these minarchists often accept (in a conservative rather than principled way) as valid some of current government's domain, and consider it more urgent to stop the expansion of government than to reduce its domain to any particular size. Minarchists are generally opposed to government programs which transfer wealth or which subsidize certain sectors of the economy.
Minarchists usually justify their vision of the state by referring to basic principles rather than arguing in terms of pragmatic results. For example, in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia Robert Nozick defines the role of a minimal state as follows:
"Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. Two noteworthy implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection."
Prominent minarchists include Benjamin Constant, Herbert Spencer, Leonard Read, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, James M. Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, John Hospers, Robert Nozick, Henry David Thoreau
Social Security has nothing to do with communism, Classical Liberals (Thomas Paine, Adam Smith) envisioned it already in 18th century.
Following Adam Smith, classical liberals believe in three main functions of government: 1] the defence of the nation in international relations; 2] the administration of justice, upholding general rules of conduct protecting property and contract and preventing force and fraud; 3] the provision of "public goods" such as a minimum safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves, all of which the private sector would be unwilling or find too costly to provide on its own. Classical liberals affirm that the state has a role in part-financing the provision of public goods, but they argue that this leaves ample room for private financing as well as competitive and decentralised private management of the services delivered.
Many ill-informed commentators hold that classical liberalism advocates an unqualified laissez faire and a minimalist "nightwatchman" state - "anarchy plus the constable", in the derisory words of Carlyle. This is false. The stress on justice or the Rule of Law shows that classical liberalism advocates a qualified, not an absolutist, laissez faire or what one could term "liberty under the law".
According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to ... first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, so far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, and thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain... - Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter IX
Supporters usually argue that anarchism is naive and goes too far towards simplicity, while libertarianism is often too allowing of vested interests, and that what they call minarchy continues traditions of classical liberal philosophy in their original form.
Radical minarchists usually agree that government should be restricted to its "minimal" or "night-watchman" state functions of government (courts, police, prisons, defence forces). Some other minarchists include in the role of government the management of essential common infrastructure (roads, money); some, by what is sometimes reproached to them as a slippery slope, include quite a lot in such essential infrastructure (schools, hospitals, social security). Actually, these minarchists often accept (in a conservative rather than principled way) as valid some of current government's domain, and consider it more urgent to stop the expansion of government than to reduce its domain to any particular size. Minarchists are generally opposed to government programs which transfer wealth or which subsidize certain sectors of the economy.
Minarchists usually justify their vision of the state by referring to basic principles rather than arguing in terms of pragmatic results. For example, in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia Robert Nozick defines the role of a minimal state as follows:
"Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. Two noteworthy implications are that the state may not use its coercive apparatus for the purpose of getting some citizens to aid others, or in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection."
Prominent minarchists include Benjamin Constant, Herbert Spencer, Leonard Read, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, James M. Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, John Hospers, Robert Nozick, Henry David Thoreau
Social Security has nothing to do with communism, Classical Liberals (Thomas Paine, Adam Smith) envisioned it already in 18th century.
Following Adam Smith, classical liberals believe in three main functions of government: 1] the defence of the nation in international relations; 2] the administration of justice, upholding general rules of conduct protecting property and contract and preventing force and fraud; 3] the provision of "public goods" such as a minimum safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves, all of which the private sector would be unwilling or find too costly to provide on its own. Classical liberals affirm that the state has a role in part-financing the provision of public goods, but they argue that this leaves ample room for private financing as well as competitive and decentralised private management of the services delivered.
Many ill-informed commentators hold that classical liberalism advocates an unqualified laissez faire and a minimalist "nightwatchman" state - "anarchy plus the constable", in the derisory words of Carlyle. This is false. The stress on justice or the Rule of Law shows that classical liberalism advocates a qualified, not an absolutist, laissez faire or what one could term "liberty under the law".
According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to ... first, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, so far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice, and thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain... - Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter IX
Stratofortress
Warlord
About the state and taxation, I would point out incidentally that Saint Augustine, who is not famous for being a libertarian, did however set forth an excellent libertarian parable. He wrote that Alexander the Great had seized some pirate, and asked the pirate what he meant by seizing possession of the sea. And the pirate boldly re*plied: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a little ship, I am called a robber, while you, because you do it with a great fleet are called an emperor Here Augustine highlights the fact that the state is simply robbery writ large, on an enormous scale, but robbery legitimated by intellectual opinion.The Last Conformist said:
Take, for another example, the Mafia, which also suffers from a bad press. What the Mafia does on a local scale, the state does on an enormous scale, but the state of course has a much better press.
What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue. ~Thomas Paine
Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. ~Calvin Coolidge
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
I hope that was supposed to be irony ...
jst666 said:
I'm not sure how serious you were, but most things in life are based on money. Even the money for a welfare state has to come from somewhere. I can think of numerous other ways to spend my money than buying TVs and cars. I can spend it on raising my children, living a safe life or just enjoying some free time.
But if you think of life as a Bob Marley song you're very likely to be part of the 10% unemployed tomorrow, and that is poverty for you, at least in Finland.
Stratofortress
Warlord
As Mussolini noted:bigfatron said:Translation = "I'll call everything bad a form of socialism, even if it is nothing to do with it - if I'm lucky no-one will notice...."
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.
In socialism state controlls means of production in corporatism the same is true.
Fascism is simply dishonest socialism. Hence the name " German socialism "...as contrasted with "Soviet socialism"
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
"German socialism"? Are you refering to the Nazi Party's official designation as the National-Socialist German Worker's Party (National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)?
Of course money is one important measure of quality of life, but there are many others. Ownership of TV's and cars are very poor measures. Most of the people I know who do not own TVs and / or cars are very middle class. Important points that you touch on in your post, if you have a decient state school system, it does not cost anything like as much money to raise kids than if you have to pay for good schooling. Many people consider the amount of free time more important than the amount of money that the can spend during it.
I am remined of a good line an american I met came up with. "Many americans think that this is the best country to live in, but they are mostly the ones who have not seen any others".
Stratofortress
Warlord
Of course free time is valuable, but to take all of our money is tyranny, certain taxes are necessary to keep state functions (see my post about minarchism), but communist utopia is nothing but tyranny and making tyranny universal.if_only_we_were said:
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his. John Locke, 1690
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Is that the "we own our bodies" argument again? I hope Locke supported the right to sell yourself into slavery ...
Stratofortress
Warlord
State is there to protect property of every sort, including your own body.The Last Conformist said:
Property rights have long beign established, even in communist china if I remember correctly.
Owning your own body is is only beneficial to the extent that the individual is still free to act and survive according to his own reason.
Property rights are an extension to the right to life. In order to support yourself through reason and stay alive, you must be able to own and use the product of your labor. If the tools of your survival are subject to random confiscation, then your life is subject to random destruction.
Uh? Who mentioned taking ALL of our money? I thought we were talking about the merits of various measure of quality of life, and about quantatative levels of tax burden (from http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/071404.asp between 34% in the states and 54% in sweden, though how that matches with the grph at the top I am not sure
). Whne comparing these levels, you have to remember that for the 54% you get high quality free heath care and education. I belive (but cannot find a link now) that if you add up the total spending on health care in the US to the tax rate you a similar %age of GDP the what we have in the UK (about 50% I belive).
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
The state (supposedly) protects my property and my body. It does not recognize my body as my property.Stratofortress said:
Property rights to external objects, yes. I don't believe there's any country on Earth where the state recognizes ownership of one's own body.
I do not see how ownership of one's own body would be an improvement on the situation in the contemporary West.
My life is subject to random destruction, whether the state reserves the right to random confiscation of my proporty or not. Point?
"To own and use the product of your labor" does sound faintly communistic ...
Stratofortress
Warlord
Labor is property, in capitalism you keep your labor and are free to exchange it, in communism your labor is not yours but that of the state.The Last Conformist said:
samildanach
Necrophile
Civilisation is a protection racket. Get used to it or I will have to send the boys round. 
Saga of Gemini
Golden Saint Overlord
ummm why sweden first?.
Japan should be higher at least one step above of whatever position the US have.
What about Spain? the country with the bigest growth potential in europe?
And why is the USA put as america? isnt that the name of the continent?? Why didnt they just put USA?? I mean the name of the country is USA not America.
Japan should be higher at least one step above of whatever position the US have.
What about Spain? the country with the bigest growth potential in europe?
And why is the USA put as america? isnt that the name of the continent?? Why didnt they just put USA?? I mean the name of the country is USA not America.
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
Labour? You were speaking of the product of one's labour.Stratofortress said:
Nitpick: in "true" (Marxian) communism, there is no state, so no-one's labour can belong to it.
In Marx's analysis, capitalism causes 'alienation' because the worker does not control the products of his labour; why the line "you must be able to own and use the product of your labor" reminded me of this concept should be fairly obvious. Incidentally, while you might disagree about the alienation part, you can't very well deny that the typical (manufacturing) worker in a capitalist society does in fact not own or otherwise control the objects he creates (or helps create, in most cases). I don't see that changing if society be reformed along more Libertarian lines.
