Gurdur

Friar Bellows, I'm still waiting for you to define "statist" and what you consider to be the "superstitions of statists".

thefugitivesaint

August:
i am not Adam Smith and whatever interpretation i present as to his motives, based on his existing works, would be a bit of conjecture. But, Smith was all about conjecture as his "economic history" is loaded with conjecture.

I would say that Smith would have loved the present market system as far as it replaced and superceded the "moral economy" he so rallied against. That "economy" being the self-sufficient lives led by the vast majority of the population who had little to no need for the market and what it had to offer. Now that most cultural forms are based around the markets influence most people (if not all) have no choice but to gain their sustanence and basic necessities as mediated through the market. All things are now priced to sell and what isn't priced to sell will be (think water and, probable, air).

Smith, being a man of his times so to speak, did not see the hypocrisy in his position. When he deplored the farmer who raised crops for his families own needs first and traded the rest or bartered what he needed from those around him as being lazy and unproductive he was merely stating that he disproved of activity that did not operate within the emerging market. Smith deplored the lifestyle of the peasants, poor, workers and independent tradesmen. They not only lived as they did on their own but they had their own values which did not reflect the same values as the emerging middle class/market economy. Smith defended his own values with as much force as he could but never saw the people he attacked as doing the exact same thing.

Smith, i think, would not be happy with the state of how the market was being run. I am leaning heavily towards my previous posts about Smith in that he would condemn the present arrangement of big multi-national businesses as being detrimental to any healthy market.

i've been reading my classical economists vey closely as of late and i've re-evaluated some of my postive positions on Smith. I can still stand by a few of my previous assertions but most have proven untenable. I did not read Smith with as critical an eye as i should have.

i did not mean to address Smith as a proponent of Libertarianism. His thinking was not as simple as some who supported the emerging market. Smith was intelligent and he did address many issues in the course fo his work. I am sure, if he were alive and able to comment on the state of things, that his reaction to the historical developments which have come about due to Capitalism would be far from simplistic praise or horror. It would be probably involve both of those emotions and many more. I don't think though that he would look upon Libertarianism as the voice he handed down to the proponents of the "market." I think his take on the realities of the "market" would not be so naive and utopian in its nature. Smith did not hold "rational man" on the pedestal that most Libertarians do. I think Smith held a great deal of distrust for the "masses" and did not credit most people with the ability to utilize reason in all aspects of their lives. It would be a fool who did (Ayn Rand anyone?).

I know that last bit was uncalled for but i cannot help myself.
-theSaint.

Friar Bellows

Should be in any decent dictionary.

Their doctrines. A political dictionary or encyclopaedia would be of better assistance in this case.

Gurdur

Friar Bellows

Your confidence appears misplaced. The words "statist" or "statism" do not appear in many decent dictionaries at all.

Here are two:

So perhaps you'ld like to tell us just what your definition is ? Seeing as to how with two contradictory dictionary definitions, and one of them rather vague, we might not grasp your own meaning ?

theyeti

Libertarian ideology has a number of theoretical problems that really make it untenable. I'll just point out a couple.

1. Libertarians expect absolute property rights, but they won't pay the government (through taxes) to support them. This comes from the naive belief that property is somehow a "natural right" that can't be abridged. In fact, anyone with better weaponry than you can remove your property rights at any time. This is why the government grants property rights and protects them with the police, the military, and the courts (among other institutions). Yet libertarians consider taxation to be theft, so therefore the government can't exact compensation for providing what is perhaps its most fundamental function. Some libertarians advance the idea that the police and the military can be funded through private donations, but aside from being laughably naive, this is also dangerous to the very fabric of democracy for what should be obvious reasons (the people doing the funding will be doing the directing). So until libertarians can come to the conclusion that it's okay for the government to levy taxes at least some of the time, then they have a major problem with their political philosophy.

2. The libertarian solution to every problem is simply to privatize everything. But this simply can't be done with many resources that we use, such as the air we breath, sunshine, the oceans, the noises that we her, Earth's climate, and so on. Non private property is subject to what is known as the "tradgedy of the commons"; individuals have no reason to limit their use or abuse of a resource, because if they do, someone else will just come along and use it to get a comparative advantage. This is especially true when it comes to things like pollution, where the costs are spread out amongst everyone, yet the direct benefits only accrue to a small portion of people. Anyone who stops polluting will give an advantage those who don't, so there's a strong incentive not to stop. In cases where a resource cannot be priviatized, the only solution to the "tradgedy of the commons" is government regulation. Thus anytime some one affects these things in a way that affects other people's welfare, the government must intervene. But since libertarian ideology forbids any government interference, they have no solution to these kinds of problems. They often suggest litigation as a means to correct these kinds of abuses, but without any clearly defined property that's being harmed, it's not clear how a libertarian society would recognize even who the litigants are. (For example, would every car owner be put on trail in a global warming dispute? Who would be the plaintif in such a case?) And of course there are serious pragmatic problems with allowing litigation to solve these problems.

A related issue is that of natural monopolies. Things like the roads, power lines, and water and sewer can only exist one at a time (or at least it only makes sense to do so), so it's not feasible to have competing groups providing these services. These need to be publicly run or heavily regulated as well.

theyeti

P.S. Please note that these arguments apply to "Libertarianism" as a strict political ideology. These criticisms would apply, for example, to what the Libertarian Party believes, but they would not necessarily apply to "libertarian-leaning" people who are not so inflexible.

99Percent

I am jumping a bit late into this thread because I was a bit busy with other stuff, but I have a bit of time right now and I find this post an excellent opportunity to respond.

Ideally everyone in such a society would simply respect everyone's right of property and no government would be needed. Fact remains that we have a violent nature and there must exist a government that has a monopoly in power that is above any individual or group intention to power. Its not true that libertarians won't pay to protect their property, in fact even the police could be privatized and such a police would become paid to become guardians of private property, with those having more property or are more paranoid about their protecty more willing to pay for such a service. But this police would be constitutionally prohibited from become mercenaries free to invade and initiate violence upon others. No, the government doesn't grant any rights. The rights are individual and are already there before government is even institutionalized. These rights are derived from objective morality if you want to explore that more deeply The government protects right through simply a piece of paper called the constitution. This piece of paper is basically useless unless everyone in a society recognizes it as such. The whole military could in theory take over the U.S. government and maybe the whole world but its kept in check and enforced by the sheer symbolism of a piece of paper that is recognized as fundamental to society by almost everyone in the U.S. In fact some libertarians have proposed that the police can be privatized but still regulated by courts through constitutional powers as I just mentioned above. Yes, a definite but miniscule tax must be levied to support the monopoly of absolute power of the state with a minimal military that will be called in case of a national emergency or foreign invasion. Voluntary conscription can then be called into place where the rich would be more than willing to pay than the poor to protect their property, and the poor more willing to be paid to become soldiers to defend with their lives than the rich. If such a society is not willing to freely bring itself to sacrifice some of the wealth and lives to defend it then such a society does not deserve to survive.

But this is a very far cry from the current levels of taxation of today's nations. I estimate that just 1% of the wealth produced is more than necessary for a strong defense of any nation (in the U.S. that would be 100 billion dollars for example). Right now taxation levels is about 30% of everything produced in the U.S. and thats because the government is participating in the economy in so many sectors its outrageous.

They can't be privatized because they seem to be limitless. For example how do you propose that the sunshine or the air we breath, or the oceans could ever be consumed? In doomsday scenarios sure, but I we are atleast centuries if not millenias away from such a scenario, and even so, its not our responsibility to care for future generations as I have argued countless of times here. And precisely the reason resources must be privatized as much as possible. The "public interest" is too neboulous to be objectively considered, and its simply a catchphrase for politicians to make themselves feel useful. Again, indepedent non governmental watchdogs can and would arise if there was a genuine public interest. These watchdogs would "certify" companies that make produce at the expense of the environment so any company who wishes to gain the "seal of approval" of such a watchdog and therefore be more "consumer friendly" would pay or sponsor the watchdogs. These in turn would gain the public trust and their reputations by being truthful in their certifications. No government is required. I am already proposing such a solution. Precisely because there is no objectively defined way to see how a "harm" is actually being done to a society or to the environment it is why libertarians are against a governmental regulation of such "resources". The government could in fact invent any pretext to abuse its power to protect this nebolous "public" good. For example that global warming even is a fact is extremely debatable and if it were it true, there is no objective way to measure its impact or an objective way to see if any diminishing of any human activities are actually diminishing it, and by how much. Thats highly debatable. They are called "natural" monopolies because they seem to be absolute necessities that benefit everyone. But is it really so? What if you never use a car? Why should you be paying for roads with taxes? Electricity can be self generated if the private power companies decide to raise their prices. Water utilities can certainly compete in many ways, not just through public piping, such as delivery by trucks (as it occurs in some towns in Mexico due to government ineptness), same with sewers. Its all a matter of having more of an imagination to see ways on how consumer needs can be satisfied. And a trust on human ingenuity to solve problems and make things always better.

I appreciate that. I of course don't pretend that an outright revolution is needed to implement libertarian ideas. But I do think that libertarianism can be applied gradually in all aspects of our society and that we can evolve toward it. However I believe in ideal libertarianism because I have explored its extremes as above. You can find the truthfulness of an ideal by looking at its extremes. Its a good intellectual exercise.

August Spies

But this police would be constitutionally prohibited from become mercenaries free to invade and initiate violence upon others.

right because a goverment which has no police force or military would be able to stop them.

These rights are derived from objective morality if you want to explore that more deeply

excuse me while i laugh. Would you like to explain objective morality, who deduces laws from it and how we can know these laws are TRULY deduced from objective morality. You might want to keep in mind that everyone seems to disagree on them, even different strains of capitalism.

Regardless it is still true IN PRACTICE that goverments grant this or that right to people. This is why different societies have different rights.

The government protects right through simply a piece of paper called the constitution.

absurd. It enforces these property "rights" through an extensive legal system, ie using force and/or threat of force.

catchphrase for politicians

says the propnent of "true capitalism" and "objective morality"

anyways 99, id be very intersted to hear your response to joejoejoe in his thread addressed to you, if you can get around to it.

elwoodblues

Odd. Most Libertarians view a strong military as very important, as well as a strong (though strictly leashed) police force.

August Spies

elwood, je ne sais pas mais il was just saying the police forces woudl be private and different companies could buy larger ones.

99Percent

There must be of course an ultimate force that is above any private police force as I proposed above. This force can grow or shrink as necessary because it is recognized as sovereign by everyone in such a society. Or else the renegade force can choose to seceede.

Whatever, I am not going to argue with you about this. We have already a lot of times. Its up to you to recognize and derive with your own reason that such a morality exist. I am in no position to force it upon you or anyone of course, which is what subjectivism is all about.

Again, false. The government does not grant these rights. They are fundamental to government itself.

False. This "extensive legal system" is based fundamentally on a piece of paper called the constitution of which everyone must abide too, or else society crumbles.