afterzir

I just heard of "geolibertarianism". Here is the short wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism Although taxes are bad, I sometimes think that land taxes encourage people to be productive with the land. Is this ideology sound? The article says that no one owns the land. This might be problematic. Any thoughts?

I think mathematicians usually start with the trivial scenario (base case). I guess by trivial I mean a system so basic it doesn't need to be studied on account of how simplistic it is.

I'm trying to exhaustively classify economic systems and I thought a good starting point would be the trivial one. - economics comes the the greek word for household, so based on that, the trivial system would be one where everyone is isolated living alone (there would be no money / interaction / communication) - however austrians (I think) define economics as the study of purposeful action, so based on that, the trivial system would be one of inaction, i.e. slavery (where individuals can't pursue their own goals). Are both right? Is one more accurate? Are the two really isomorphic and I just don't see it?

Even if those resources are infinite, the resource of time isn't.

I agree. Also, a person isn't really bossed around at work, I just used boss & bossed to show the dual nature.

I just realized that capitalism solves the problem of "who will boss(guard) the bosses(guards)?" When you are paying money, you are the boss. When you are being paid, you are bossed. The more you want to be a boss, the more you have to be bossed. The more you want to be bossed, the more you have to be a boss. [centrally-planned (i.e. communism, socialism, r-b-e, etc.) economies don't solve this]

I just listened to some videos at mises . org about counterfeiting/inflation and they used the following logic: Say a gov't person creates(prints) money. That gov't person has two options ~ a) distribute the money proportionally (angel Gabriel / dropping money from a blimp - are the examples used) They explain that this is trivial (nothing changes in a meaningful way). b) distribute the money disproportionately (gov't giving money to its cronies and letting that money slowly trickle into the economy at large - is used as the example) They explain that the people who receive the money first get all the benefit and the rest get what amounts to a 'hidden tax' (especially those who are last to touch the new money). This is their argument against gov't printing money. However, doesn't this logic apply to any printer of money (i.e. the distribution will either be trivial or a hidden tax)? I'm kind of confused, since it looks like this argument can be extended to printing money in general. (aside: they also argue that inflation is akin to counterfeiting) In a recent video, Molyneaux described inflation as the overprinting of money. So, how do you know how much is too much? (I typed 'counterfeit into mises.org and the first three entries [one from Walter Block, and one from Rothbard] are the videos I'm referring to, in case anyone wants to watch them) Thanks (I wish I could have written a shorter post)

Thanks for the response.

Question: If copying doesn't violate UPB (universally preferable behavior), then what stops counterfeiting? Since digital theft is way more common than real life theft, solutions other than Bitcoin are preferred. Thanks

Imagine an island. If one person inhabited the island, then there wouldn't be money. If 1,000 people inhabited the island, then there would be money. Therefore, counting up from 1 to 1,000 men, at some point money is used. What is the least number of people for this? Is it 3? (would 2 people result in zero-sum?)

Although internal, you still have market dynamics (somewhat). Each dept. head wants to show good stats to management, so they will try to buy low if they are receiving products or try to sell high if they are forking over products (just like the firm/consumer relation).

Check out the honesty.

check out this picture

People justify gov't and its activities by claims that the good outweighs the bad. Examples: a) IRS takes peoples' money (bad), but gives it to the needy (supposed good) b) People forfeit some liberties to gov't (bad), but get order & sense of security (supposed good) The problem, as I see it, is that you are comparing apples & oranges. E.g. if someone punched another person then gave money to charity, he can't claim that the good he did outweighs/offsets the bad he did (since they're two different things). There are many other problems with gov't as well, but what I was wondering was if this applies to CBA (cost-benefit analysis). Good & bad are similar to benefits & costs in a way or am I stretching it too far? Is comparing costs and benefits like comparing apples & oranges? If I reworded example b) as: "the benefit that government provides to individuals is greater than the costs which it imposes on them", wouldn't that be cost-benefit analysis, and wouldn't it be comparing apples and oranges? So basically, the main thing I'm wonder is if CBA is well-defined.

~ praxeology axiomatically asserts that man acts purposefully --> a) man has goals b) man tries to achieve those goals c) man uses 'tools' to help him/her achieve those goals ~ in terms of having an effect: - you can't control what goals a person has (a is unaffected) - you can't control whether or not a person achieves their goals (b is unaffected) - but you can control the tools that a person has access to, though ~ example: you can't control if someone wants to be a famous doctor or not you can't control if they cure cancer or not but you can lend medical books, etc. to help the person ~ so since c) is the only one able to be affected, you want a system centered around tool optimization (note: money is a special tool; the tool of tools) ~ this means efficiently allocating tools, honing tools (like skills, knowledge, ...), etc. [capital is really just another name for tools after all] Is this the basis for capitalism, or does something else underlie it (like property rights)?

I've been an an-cap for so long now that I have difficulty remembering what appealed to me about statist arguments. (I went from democrat to republican to an-cap (leapfrogging libertarianism)) Recently, I remembered why I used to hold left-wing ideas. I used to work backwards from paradise to reality; for example, in paradise no one worries about dying hence in reality we should have welfare so that no one has to worry about dying. This reverse engineering can be dangerous (as the above example shows) but I was wondering if it's possible to work backwards to arrive at anarcho capitalism? (since usually anarcho capitalism is derived in a forwards manner through axioms, principles, and logic)

I agree that money is better and more efficient (I just wanted to point out that although the DCOW argument defeats the barter system, it isn't as devastating as some people think)

I don't quite understand DCOW (double coincidence of wants). Austrians say that before money there were barter economies, and for these barter economies to work well, they had the extremely difficult task of repeatedly fulfilling DCOWs. Here are two examples I think reduce the need for DCOW: a) [credit scenario] a doctor wants carrots, but the farmer isn't sick --> so the farmer gives the doctor the carrots and the doctor agrees to heal the farmer if he gets sick (since it is likely the farmer will get sick in the future) b) [weak transferability scenario] a doctor's friend, who is a carpenter, is getting married, so the doctor agrees to heal a rancher if the rancher provides food for the carpenter's wedding (note: the rancher doesn't need any carpentry services) Any thoughts?

I came up with a very 'loose' proof for the elimination of poverty and I want to throw it out there. The idea: Exponential growth is where you start off by rising very slowly but then at some point you start to skyrocket. Interest (compounded) is exponential and its formula is $ = pe^rt. If the variables p, r, and t can be maximized, then a person can reach or come close to the skyrocket part of the exponential curve. P, r, and t can be maximized with certain assumptions. Maximizing t (time): Assumption: deflationary economy Deflation favors lenders over borrowers and so lenders will want money as soon as possible to invest with (I don't know much about finance, but from watching venture capital firms in silicon valley where there is a kind of deflationary environment, it seems as though they would like to raise funds quicker and at a larger size if they could [this observation comes from me watching many techcrunch videos]). (I picture banks and other financial institutions offering companies some kind of incentive to have their employees start depositing with them as soon as they begin working) (I'm guessing that the average age people start saving for retirement is in their 30's, but with deflation it will be in their teens/20's) Maximizing p (principal): Assumptions: deflationary economy & no taxation With deflation, lenders will not only want money soon but also as much of it as possible since they are favored. Without corporate taxes the companies can pay higher salaries / Without income taxes the workers can keep more money / Without sales taxes the price of goods will drop. All this means the worker will have much more money. Plus, with deflation prices tend to fall so there is no rush to buy things so you might as well park that money with some financial institution in the meantime. The low time preference plus fat pockets plus favorability of lenders leads to maximizing p. Maximizing r (interest rate): Assumptions: (laizze faire) capitalism & no copyrights In capitalism, you try to maximize profit which will lead to high returns for the lenders/stock holders. Also, capitalism applied to education will produce people who are much smarter and more entrepreneurial. Companies create new stuff or improve upon existing stuff in order to make money and copyright interferes with the latter and sometimes the former too so it needs to go. This probably sounds kind of loose/weak but I won't elaborate further. Is this good/bad/mediocre?

I'm an an-cap, but some people advocate a moneyless society and I want to know how to refute some criticism/remarks of money. 1) Value is subjective, subjective things can't be measured/quantified --> hence the use of money as a way to measure/quantify value is illogical 2) Praxeology is built off of the notion that humans act to achieve goals (and use tools i.e. capital to help them achieve those goals). Economics should be (this is over simplified) thought of binarily as did you achieve or not achieve your goal(s), and not on a number line (i.e. how much profit/loss occurred) 3) Someone not having enough money to go to a hospital is disturbing 4) Without money people will be 100% internally motivated to work 5) The only true 'currencies' are time & attention 6) Without money copyright goes out the window (this assumes you find copyright undesirable) Also, what is your definition of money? The definitions I've heard of so far are: a) medium of exchange b) proof of work performed c) an economic good (just like a bicycle) d) a complexity mitigator (a way to handle millions of transactions) Also, I heard money was created to sustain military campaigns back in the old days. Is that true?

1) I guess I would define rich as being able to easily satisfy your desires/goals/needs 2) People in Africa (on aggregate) can not easily satisfy goals because of the lack of capital there 3) Although I don't see the relevance, not all, but most 4) It allows people to pursue their dreams (and no central planners taking over the task of thinking for others) 5) I thought that would make the problem simpler to think about 6) I'm aware that he's not great in all regards, I was just using him as an example 7) He still sees politics as a tool to make the world better (but he is wrong)

The African part is just background on how the idea popped into my head, it doesn't have anything to do with the question. I would phrase it logically as a conditional: if everyone is incredible, then can everyone be wealthy? Two things that I'm wondering about is prices (if everyone has money that is more and more valuable, would there be less reason to work) and investing (if investing is [narrowly] defined as having your money make money, then can everyone invest continuously). Good point Viewing things as resources and money (where money is a claim on those resources) is helpful

I have a question; is it possible for everyone to be rich? This came about when I was thinking about Africa and how everyone is pretty much poor and then I wondered if the opposite is possible. I know that laissez faire capitalism is extraordinarily good, but is it up to the task? (I want the best scenario to be assumed, i.e. that everyone is as smart, skilled, & motivated as Bill Gates)

Hello, I think I came up with a mathematical proof that everyone in an anarcho-cap. society will be rich. The question that popped into my mind afterwards was: if everyone's rich, do we even need money? (I doubt Bill Gates looks at price tags). I thought this bowling pin would be easy to strike down, but surprisingly it isn't. I looked up some Mises Institute videos about the existence of money, but they create a straw-man by saying that without money you need 'double coincidence' to occur however it's possible to have something akin to accounts receivable/payable. I favor money because I feel that it would be a logistical nightmare without it, but is there any other reasons why money is preferable to no money? (I'm currently fascinated by a moneyless society, although I'd probably choose to live in one with money)

I see, you're right. Thanks for that.