Question for Statists

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There was indeed capitalism and privately owned companies in Nazi Germany.

False dilemma.

Thomas81 is pretty open about being a Marxist, I'm not sure how he reconciles it with the real world

Next time I bump into a statist I'll make sure to ask him...

I sorta wonder how lazy Marxists reconcile with the real world...

http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.co ... -marxists/

^interesting article, thanks.

Well, this went off topic quickly... will people please answer the question I asked?

I believe a group of people ought to have the authority to initiate volence on the grounds that they can justify their actions, I am not a statist.

You are thinking in terms of rights. I don't believe rights are a good nuetral place to start. I believe state welfare is justifyed on the grounds that people today (2014) would die or starve without it. I am aware of the function of state welfare to the state, which is to ruduce disfaith in capitalism. But I don't believe gutting welfare is a effective or ethical way to bring about anarchism.

Do you want a premature revolution filled with angry people who don't have an idea of what they want? We may have to deal with another Lenin or Napolean. Just saying we need to abolosh the state is not effective. There are no long term goals without effective short term goals, and gutting welfare isn't one of the latter. In fact, I believe a more effective goal would be going the opposite direction. Scaring the state so much that it has to give workers more rights, nationalized healthcare, etc. People can prove to themselves that they are capable of taking collective action to better their lives. Anarchism is a process

Lots of edits, terrible at spelling.

Last edited by RushKing on 21 Jan 2014, 12:23 pm, edited 11 times in total.

I'm not really a "statist", I just think states should exist.

(My numbering)
1) Nobody has the moral right to initiate violence against people. They only have the right to stop them harming other people.
2) Name me an arbitrary group of people that seizes wealth that others have worked for? I can think of many groups, but none of them arbitrary.
3) Nobody has the right to impose themselves in affairs that don't concern them. They do have the right to impose themselves in affairs that concern them.

1. Then I presume you oppose almost all the laws that exist?
2. Then I presume you oppose taxation?
3. Then I presume you oppose interference in free contracts between individuals, such as the minimum wage, an established national currency, restrictions on who can sell what...?

Though harm is quite a fuzzy word to use, open to interpretation...

But still, I didn't take you for a libertarian

I never said that.

Mussolini's Italy was corporatist by the way. It openly embraced capitalism.

Also its a lie that nazi germany disposed of capitalism. They got into bed with heavy industrialists and even went as far as to launch a competitor to Coca cola (they produced what we call Fanta today).

Was that an ad hominem that just pelted me in the back?

Don't make me come down there, young man.

I answered it. Do you have a rebuttal?


Click the link. It's actually a good article.

All you said was that, essentially, might makes right. Which I guess *is* any answer, but one that is akin to saying no news is no news in terms of it's usefulness.

I guess I'm saying that the burden of proof is on you to justify a universal morality.

I should point out that "rights" is a bit of a weasel word. The only natural right I believe in is the right to do what you want and experience the consequences. This includes the right to form a state. It would also be useful for a government to guarantee certain legal rights to acknowledge what things are none of the government's business and to give citizens a way to challenge half-baked laws.

I also take issue with the assumption that the governments always initiate force (whatever that means). If a government action is mitigating an even greater threat, you can't blame the government for using force. For example, people who are in great danger of poverty have no incentive to respect the institution of property. The government responds with welfare funded by taxes and jails those who don't pay. Given the choice between lots of homeless people on the street and jailing a few tax evaders, the homeless people are clearly the greater threat. Yet libertarians will claim that the government somehow initiated the use of force. I don't mean to say that government always knows best and won't abuse it's power, but just because an idea is tricky and dangerous to get right, doesn't mean we should never try. If that were the case, no one would ever invent anything. Surely, it is a greater burden on society to ban an entire field of innovation than to have a government that openly acknowledges its own fallibilty.

Yes, we have accumulated far too many laws in the past ~1000 years (I'm guessing the Normans essentially threw out all the Saxon laws but I might be wrong). We have so many laws that you couldn't read them all in a lifetime. Ideally I'd like a student graduating from a three-year law degree to have a good working knowledge of all areas of law, but perhaps that isn't realistic. Nonetheless, I think it should theoretically be possible to have a set of laws that it is feasible to memorise.

I oppose taxation under the following sufficient conditions:
1) The taxed party does not have a meaningful say in how their money is spent
2) The taxation has an overall negative effect on society

I was going to add further conditions, but I feel those two encompass most of them (such as an illegitimate authority).

No, I do not oppose those things.

A minimum wage helps guarantee a standard of living and means the government does not have to subsidise wages as highly. I could be persuaded against it, but I believe the arguments against it (principally, raising wages drives up prices/reduces the number of jobs) have been fairly substantially debunked. I will only accept a posteriori arguments against it (i.e. "it doesn't work" rather than "it is inherently immoral").

An established national currency has significant advantages, primarily convenience. You are free to attempt to use any currency you like in your transactions (be that sterling, Euro, USD, Tanzanian shilling, Gambian delasi, Bitcoin, coconuts, crisps, or haircuts), but unless the other party accepted it as legitimate then you will not be successful.

As for "restrictions on who can sell what", it depends what you mean. I think it is quite right that we stop anyone from selling elephant ivory, bitter experience shows us that people will hunt species to extinction for profit and the market does not stop them. Equally, I don't think we should allow people to buy and sell 2,4-DNP without good reason. I don't see any good reasons off the top of my head why you'd want to stop someone from selling bananas, pens, or forks, and as such everyone should be allowed. You might need to be more specific.