So, what's wrong with Libertarianism?

[Traitorfish]

Sure. But eliminating much of the violence and predation is still better than being a victim of all of it.

So you say. But that doesn't change the fact that if an at least plausible aspiration to prevent all predatory is a necessary qualification for statehood, human beings have never formed an effective state. All we've achieved is a lot of superficially state-like entities. It turns out that it's not merely Taiwan that is stateless, but the entire planet.

 

[lovett]

It's interesting that this thread has gone to six pages without anyone, as far as I can see, attempting to give a definition of 'libertarianism'.

 

[Cutlass]

So you say. But that doesn't change the fact that if an at least plausible aspiration to prevent all predatory is a necessary qualification for statehood, human beings have never formed an effective state. All we've achieved is a lot of superficially state-like entities. It turns out that it's not merely Taiwan that is stateless, but the entire planet.

No, this is, once again, you twisting things to dispute a point other than the point anyone else is actually trying to make.

 

[Traitorfish]

If your argument contains implicit conclusions which you yourself reject, then the fault lies with your lousy argument, not with the person pointing out it.

 

[Dachs]

It's interesting that this thread has gone to six pages without anyone, as far as I can see, attempting to give a definition of 'libertarianism'.

In my defense, I don't really care about the central argument, just the points that people make in support of their own arguments.

 

[Cutlass]

If your argument contains implicit conclusions which you yourself reject, then the fault lies with your lousy argument, not with the person pointing out it.

No, rather you are just misrepresenting my point. Which I'm certain that you know you are doing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The idea being, I guess, that random noise tends to cancel out, but genuine knowledge distributed throughout the crowd adds up, when averaged. I suspect that in the bigger picture, crowd-wisdom follows Col's rule ("Extensive research has shown that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.")

Crowd wisdom is only functional if they have proper information. Crowd wisdom gets quite poor when given excessively incomplete or wrong information. Take the jelly beans in jar example; how would the crowd have done, if asked to simply guess how many items were in a jar, without being shown the jar? What if they were told to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar, but were not allowed to see it and were not informed that there were jumbo jelly beans in it?

The comparable thing to my example in politics is what gets presented...or incentivized to present...to the public by governments, media, or both (depending on country). Garbage in, garbage out...only arguably worse, because the information is tailored in such a way as to create bias. "I have a jar of jelly beans, guess how many?!", but hidden in the back room, is a jar with a volume of a cubic meter, and extra tiny jelly beans. Smooth...you could probably have 1000+ people and they'd all fail to guess remotely near the vast quantity then.

I did make an argument that the lack of an inclusive state usually results in poverty and violence.

And he accurately pointed out that you used a logical fallacy to do it.

Also, correlation does not prove causation, especially because there are a ton of other patterns consistent with high-violence poor-economy countries, regardless of the effective presence of a government and its degree of regulation.

Perhaps a better avenue to explore is whether, in the absence of a governing body, force always takes over and creates one. If that is the case, what degree of force and regulation is preferable? If it isn't, what conditions prevent it?

 

[Part_Time_Civer]

That doesn't actually show me a reason why my argument is wrong. Because you aren't making an argument that those things are related. But I did make an argument that the lack of an inclusive state usually results in poverty and violence. And you do not have a refutation of that.

It's good that you make an argument about how they are related. I may not agree with you, but that's the great thing about this forum (intelligent minds exchanging differing viewpoints). And if you use economical data, political theory and what not to prove your point...even better. I'm just objecting to your original reasoning and I'm saying it was just as incorrect as my Sweden example.

 

[Traitorfish]

No, rather you are just misrepresenting my point. Which I'm certain that you know you are doing.

I'm suggesting that your point devours itself; that you are the Ouroboros of dodgy political logics.

You say that the state is preferable to the absence of the state, because the state prevents or at least plausibly aspires to prevent predatory behaviour.

However, this describes no complex, centralised polity, past or present. So either there is not a single state on the face of the earth and never has been, which would render your strident declarations of empiricism invalid, or you do not have a firm grasp of what states are.

Being a generous soul, I prefer to imagine that you have your principles right and have merely erred in their application, so opt for the latter. Would you rather that I assume you are wrong from beginning to end?

 

[Cutlass]

I'm suggesting that your point devours itself; that you are the Ouroboros of dodgy political logics.

You say that the state is preferable to the absence of the state, because the state prevents or at least plausibly aspires to prevent predatory behaviour.

However, this describes no complex, centralised polity, past or present. So either there is not a single state on the face of the earth and never has been, which would render your strident declarations of empiricism invalid, or you do not have a firm grasp of what states are.

You see, this is just so utterly ridiculous that there's not much of any point in actually engaging it. I have never claimed that something has to be perfect in order to be worthwhile.

That is what you do.

By projecting your needs are onto my values, you entirely misrepresent what I am saying.

So let me try to be clearer: A system does not have to be perfect in order to be preferable in pretty much every respect to the alternative. In the US in the 1960s US private sector employers killed over 50,000 a year of their own employees. Now that number is under 5000. The difference? OSHA.

Should we then oppose OSHA because the number is not 0, and so choose to go back to 50,000?

That is just f***ing insane.

Being a generous soul, I prefer to imagine that you have your principles right and have merely erred in their application, so opt for the latter. Would you rather that I assume you are wrong from beginning to end?

I'd prefer if you'd stop misrepresenting my arguments.

 

[Defiant47]

[...]because the state prevents or at least plausibly aspires to prevent predatory behaviour.

However, this describes no complex, centralised polity, past or present.

This is patently false. I can list numerous states that aspire to prevent predatory behaviour. What do you think the charter of rights is? What do you think the police is for?

 

[de Maistre]

This is patently false. I can list numerous states that aspire to prevent predatory behaviour. What do you think the charter of rights is? What do you think the police is for?

Enforcing property rights and thumping protesters Remember who you're talking to

 

[Tahuti]

So let me try to be clearer: A system does not have to be perfect in order to be preferable in pretty much every respect to the alternative. In the US in the 1960s US private sector employers killed over 50,000 a year of their own employees. Now that number is under 5000. The difference? OSHA.

Should we then oppose OSHA because the number is not 0, and so choose to go back to 50,000?

TF is an anarcho-communist. The funny fact is that you look towards the state the same way a US Libertarian does, and then - unlike US Libertarians - give it a positive spin. Which is why discussions with TF will stall, because Left-Wing anarchists view the state as an enforcer of the free market and not as a suppressor, like you and other pro-government Left-wingers, US Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists do.

(notwithstanding the fact your linkage between workplace deaths and OSHA may ignore a lot of cofounding factors )

 

[El_Machinae]

So, I'm jumping right into the question. I don't have much to say about the argument above.

The problem with Libertarianism, specifically, is the cost of Justice. Libertarianism requires enforcements of contracts and the ability to sue if there's damage to one's property. Both of these things cost waaaaaay too much money in the modern era, and this prices out 90% of people from being able use the courts in any reasonable way.

That's the problem. I betcha that, implicitly, I might as (or more) Libertarian than you are. But we need to bring down the price of accessing justice before it can happen.

 

[Cutlass]

TF is an anarcho-communist. The funny fact is that you look towards the state the same way a US Libertarian does, and then - unlike US Libertarians - give it a positive spin. Which is why discussions with TF will stall, because Left-Wing anarchists view the state as an enforcer of the free market and not as a suppressor, like you and other pro-government Left-wingers, US Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists do.

The problem with that outlook is that the free market doesn't in any sense need the state to be an enforcer. Slavery was the market, not the government. The Spice Island massacres were the market, not the government. Conflict minerals are the market, not the government.

If you want to look at occasional mass slaughters, yeah, that's on government. If you want to look at slaughter that happens every single day without fail, that's the market. Even with OSHA American employers kill 13 of their employees every single day.

(notwithstanding the fact your linkage between workplace deaths and OSHA may ignore a lot of cofounding factors )

Sure. But not as many as you might think. To a large extent the number of employees killed by private firms in the developed world has been offshored, with the work and the pollution. Those factory fires and building collapses that are killing workers in SE Asia are doing so because of the decisions made in boardrooms in New York, London, and Paris.

 

[Hygro]

I now no longer know which definitions of government and market we are using for this conversation.

 

[potatokiosk]

You see, this is just so utterly ridiculous that there's not much of any point in actually engaging it. I have never claimed that something has to be perfect in order to be worthwhile.

That is what you do.

By projecting your needs are onto my values, you entirely misrepresent what I am saying.

So let me try to be clearer: A system does not have to be perfect in order to be preferable in pretty much every respect to the alternative. In the US in the 1960s US private sector employers killed over 50,000 a year of their own employees. Now that number is under 5000. The difference? OSHA.

Should we then oppose OSHA because the number is not 0, and so choose to go back to 50,000?

That is just f***ing insane.

Could you provide the source for these numbers?

 

[Cutlass]

Could you provide the source for these numbers?

If this is right than my numbers are off, and it went from ~18,000 to ~5000

http://www.aflcio.org/content/downl...atalities(Employment+Based)1970-2007final.pdf

 

[Hygro]

If this is right than my numbers are off, and it went from ~18,000 to ~5000

http://www.aflcio.org/content/downl...atalities(Employment+Based)1970-2007final.pdf

How much of that is shrinking due to an economy holding fewer risky jobs?

 

[Cutlass]

How much of that is shrinking due to an economy holding fewer risky jobs?

Certainly some of it. I don't have the primary sources here any longer. I did reports on it some 25 years ago when I was in school. But part of that is in fact American companies offshoring the danger.

I'll give you an example written up in Rolling Stone 20 odd years ago.

There used to be a factory in the US where steering wheels for cars were made of injection molded plastic. The workers made a good wage, the factory was profitable for the company, and the workers had the latest in safety equipment to protect them from burns and noxious fumes. But trade was opening up with Mexico. And the company decided to ship the factory south of the border.

Literally, they took the contents of an existing factory, and just shipped it south of the border and set the exact same thing up again.

Except it wasn't exactly the same thing, the health and safety equipment that protected the workers was stripped off and discarded.

But the workers, instead of making $20/hr, now made a dollar a day. So for Zero investment to create new process or product, and in fact a lower total capital outlay, because of no costs for the safety systems, the company can get a huge increase in profitability. But what that really means is that the company was choosing to kill Mexicans because it was being prevented from killing Americans.