Vuk11

"How do you function in a sensible state capitalist economy and you cannot do that without a central bank that controls currency. In fact if it wasn't for the federal reserves ability to print money we'd be in a deep depression" -> -> -> -> "In our state capitalist economy the only alternative is the one Bernanky has used" Yeah Chomsky you've totally considered and refuted free banking haven't you mate? Hayek's just a loon, there's no alternative but "real Anarchism" or central banking. "The sensible thing would be creating demand by government investment" Stahp, Chomsky.....please...staaaahp!

Actually yeah when I posted that I was like "gagfog"? Was strange to notice.This is I guess a formal challenge, my only fear is that people with genuinely good arguments will refuse now that there is a formal challenge, people with weak arguments will go ahead, go on the radio show and just make total fools of themselves. Either way I'll be interested too see the arguments laid out.

TZM is offering a 1000 word or less essay challenge of a Resource Based Economy. The authors will be invited onto their radio talk show for discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gagFoqkepRs

Thanks for the replies guys. The reason why I am persistent in bridging dialogue is because...well most of these people are baby boomers and have a very set in stone view of the world and it's really interesting how you can lead some right where you want them like a cat. I agree with Think Free in how to approach it, makes sense with the against me argument I've heard Stefan talk about. Obviously it gets to a point where further dialogue is pointless. Here is a response: "Well explained.There is no party standing up for small business in this country (as far as I can see).The liberal party should be a party of small business people with good ideas on innovation, drive, reward for effort,productivity.Instead we find political staffers, lifetime members of the machinery of government.Its bad enough that labor is staffed by unionists hell bent on sucking small business dry.Its bad enough that the greens have never run a farm, mine or business .But for the liberal party to desert its roots.Hopeless." I know there are a group of people that feel this way on those forums, so I was able to point out that the Libertarian Micro Party the LDP (Liberal Democrats) actually called the liberals out on not being classically liberal, they are pro small business and the only party AFAIK to offer a massive reform of the way we do things towards smaller government and economic freedom. This also opened up discussion on health care and how the countries that have a high degree of economic freedom are among those rated as the best health care in the world. So that link between how an economically free prosperous economy is able to pay for such social programs, I really don't think people make this link in general and it's a powerful point. I was also able to point out that the LDP is portrayed in the media not for it's economic reforms and protection of individual rights but for the usual media smoke screens of "marijuana and guns!". Not many Australians know there are parties that aren't the big 3 big government ones. (Labor/Liberal/Greens, most people view micro parties as pointless loons like the Sex and Shooting parties) Though I'm not one for political reform, I'd have to side with Stef on changing the family unit, spreading this information about economic freedom is important IMO.

Try telling people that are debating private VS public that taxation is theft.It goes straight into laughter and about the poor. Most would only accept it if it's proved to be better.I'm fine with presenting a moral argument against the state as a whole and democracy and what not but the same argument can't be used directly in a debate of Private vs Public.

Because people skip/ignore the moral arguments in a lot of places.Because if people say that private is cheaper/more efficient as an argument point we've kind of got to prove it, so far evidence swings both ways, I'm just curious of the logic.

What are the arguments for privatisation and deregulation in depth? Privatisation: So the argument against goes: "Health care, water and *insert utilitiy/'essential service* are there to help people not make a profit! A state monopoly can provide a service at cost and a business will provide it at a higher cost (cost + profit). Business will shaft the consumer and more importantly the poor" What are the practical arguments for privatisation? We tend to here things along the lines of: "governments have a horrible decision making progress and this makes them inefficient and always lagging behind business. Competition drives down prices and increases efficiency!" Then it just goes back and forth about X was privatized in Y country and now they're better off but X was also privatized in Z country and the state had to intervene. I guess what I'm asking is what is the logic behind the above, that makes a cost + profit business' better then a "cost only" state mandated monopoly on an essential service? We have the initial argument and evidence/counter evidence but what is the logic that explains it? Deregulation: What makes deregulating something cheaper? How does it allow for more business and more employment? Obviously people have less licensing and paperwork to worry about but what is the actual cost of regulation VS a self regulating market? Is it that business currently pays lawyers/accountants/auditors? Is it the cost of complying with government agencies that check products? (in that case is the only argument that a competitive market for agencies to check products/services cheaper/more efficient) Is it all about barriers erected for small business or the self employed? What barriers exactly? Just licensing?

I like the example of slavery when responding to the common response "But you use the roads!" It's like saying Slavery is fine because the Master feeds and shelters the slaves and they have no other option besides perhaps choosing different slave masters (states). Daniel's response is pretty much all that needs to be said though.The problem is the irrational backlash and emotional responses you get after that.

Great post OP, I also agree with dsayers. The fact that you have come to this basis of the root moral cause of statism is great for you and others that reach that same conclusion. For those that haven't reached the same conclusion the mere fact that they see problems with the current way of doing things is a start. So the best way is to keep up the moral argument, where hopefully people will agree in their own lives, in their own opinion and that is what's most important. We can debate facts, evidence and logic all day with people but if they agree with the moral argument that is most of the battle won, where I would argue that the only thing left is to calm the "what if" questions on a technical/logical side. That is not to say that evidence/logic is not essential to both the moral and logical argument. All the best.

Straight from the horses mouth: "Well, honestly, I was always extremely spiteful of businessmen, rich people, Wall street folks and the like." It's that justification for violent expropriation of property that always gets me, almost compels me to reply and debate. An insecurity I doubt I'll soon lose.

Corporate lobbying proves that in today's society money > politics, yet Anarcho-Capitalism seeks to remove the mechanism from which people exert "legal" influence and control over each other.There is a big difference between say a DRO (dispute resolution organisation) and a state: - States claim ownership of land above private property in the order of things, whereas business has no claim to someone's land - States rely on the threat of violence, whereas business knows violence is not as profitable as negotiation (paying injured employees, losing a fight, etc) - States give citizens 0 recourse besides voting (lol) and revolt, whereas business can offer contractual guarantees, people can withdraw funding, ostracize them, hell if a business does something contractually wrong in a network with banks and electricity companies also dealing with this business, they could easily freeze their account and cut their power as per contract - States have 0 competition inside of a given geographical area, whereas business is all about competition, where a business that offers consumer protection > the one that doesn't.So I don't know how much power money can have in such a society, besides hiring mercenaries......which is infinitely more expensive fighting than trading, not to mention the potential ostracism, armed populace, defence agencies they have to get through, just all around incentives not to be a dick to people or there is so much that can be done even non-violently in opposition. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The central arguments I can tell from "true-Anarchists" or Social Anarchists are: (the one's like Chomsky and those that quote him) - Invalidity of ownership as a concept - Using the above, the invalidity of private property - Immorality of Wage Labour (muh wage slavery) - Immorality of hierarchical systems (only the one's they don't like.....parents/kids and coaches/footballers are fine) The biggest issue I have with them in return is the admitted guaranteed use of violence in order to "dismantle" the hierarchy of private property. There are so many divisions among them of who deserves to be attacked by this but I'm sure we can all see that with so many ideas of who's property was gained immorally, will only lead to disaster in an "Anarchist Revolution" and many many people dead. A quick illustration of the point: I have seen at least three different opinions on using violence to dismantle private property; those that say all private property must be expropriated and shared, those that say all property besides that which was toiled with the hands, those that say all besides that which was toiled by the hand and also those that have traded this voluntarily. Now it all comes back to "all property was gained immorally at one point or another" and with this much division, you can bet your Red and Black flag that in a mass revolution people will be killed left right and center by this and it's okay to them, because of the need to remove hierarchy.

For them, the ability to own land and the means of production is the ability to take choice from people, to force them from circumstance into tenancy/hierarchy and thus infringe on their liberty(read: choice), that's the argument used.Thanks very much for the resources I'll get stuck into them. Doesn't Hoppe talk about the basis for ownership or the concept of ownership being Objective Link?

There is an issue with this logic I have faced debating Ansocs, that responsibility over something IE responsibility for making an argument does not give one ownership.When I used the definition of property rights being: Self ownership -> Ownership of actions -> Owning the effects of the actions,The criticism that was levelled was that even if self ownership is true, responsibility for an action (being responsible for hitting some for example) doesn't give one ownership as a valid concept, but rather just responsibility. Does responsibility imply ownership? If one was to strike someone and own it like private property, can that then be given away? I would say no due to responsibility of instigation, but I see their criticism and am not sure how to answer it. Personally I've been redefining my definition of property rights to first validate the concept of ownership, before arguing who owns what through the above principle. The reason being is people like Ansocs don't actually use the term ownership, using possession and to use their words to illustrate: "We don't hold possession to be sacred in the way that ancaps hold property to be sacred rather, we hold equality of liberty to be sacred and thus wish to undermine hierarchy as much as possible". Obviously their view being that private property creates hierarchy and thus infringes on the liberty of all. Ideas anyone? Cheers in advance.

Thanks for posting the distinction between the two, I guess that helps. I'm currently copping a whopper of abuse for saying Anarcho-Capitalism. Got socialists lumping the Free market with the current system of corporations and the federal reserve, also "traditional anarchists" (Anarcho-socialists?) saying that the Anarchism and Capitalism are an oxymoron and by saying Anarcho-capitalist I am a gang member that wants to control peoples lives..... I swear half of the debates I get into don't go anywhere due to a failure to communicate and differentiate people from preconceived notions. A dispute over definitions IMO is the fasted way to a circular argument.

Interestingly enough David Friedman has a great defense of his father I've recently read. Basically Milton had these policies/ideas such as negative income tax and state control over the money supply, just generally ideas that make libertarians/ancaps/minarchists scratch their heads. What David was saying is that Milton at the time was looking at ways of making the present at that time less bad. So the policies he advocated weren't necessarily his end view of society rather just trying to improve the issues of the time. I remember watching Hayek on youtube where he says the real difference between him and Friedman was that Friedman advocated a single government controlled currency and Hayek advocated multiple competing currencies. But David has said that it's sort of like a scale and he proposed to his father multiple competing currencies creating equilibrium etc as well as Anarcho-capitalism and he basically said yeah that would be great if it were possible. Basically: Multiple competing currencies > State controlled constitutional currency > Fiat private central banking by the FED. So while be might think the first one is most desirable he advocated the second as a more desirable than what we have, By the end of his days he (according to David) was on the fence about being a full blown Ancap, only the usual worry about collective services and courts/police/defense etc, you have to remember he came from the eras where people experienced world wars, so the idea of a stateless society brings up all sorts of fears.

Does anyone get this approach by them to attack SM for being "reductionist". I explained that the point of a debate is to reduce to a base premise, if your base premise is flawed then everything that leads off of that is by extension flawed. The I get hit with "It's holistic"......isn't Holism emotional and subjective about a supposed "broader view"?

Thanks for the replies that's what I was thinking. To me the act of correcting an immoral act is moral. The counter I keep getting is that by using force no matter the outcome or reason, is violent and therefore immoral. I'm just trying to make sense of that so I can better explain it to people that to fix an immorality is indeed moral. Thanks for your patience I'm new to all this and the community is pretty accommodating.

Hey all I'm going through "Universally preferred behavior" and trying to look at the example of DRO's in Stefan's article: The stateless society - An examination of alternatives. If someone voluntarily signs over protection of their property to a DRO, then someone violates that by stealing their property, is the act of enforcing the protection of property rights (or rather using force to enforce it) immoral and then a middle-truth? Or does it come back to looking at the consequence over the reason for the action? It might seem silly but it's 3AM ( ) and I keep drawing parallels between enforcing property rights through force and enforcing laws through force. Does the DRO not become the arbitrary "blue uniform" for initiating force? Cheers.

Cheers for the replies 100% agree with both of you. I'm in no way trying to pressure Stefan to reply to anything just getting opinions it's none of my business what he chooses to do about anything.

Peter Joseph on Stefan Molyneux: "The Art of Nonsense" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cnuRRWZxSE Warning: fanaticism included Hey guys, this is my first topic. I really didn't want it to be about this but I think people should see. (So the more important topics come later ) Peter Joseph has let his Ego show in a pretty horrendous response to Stefan's review of the debate. This looks to be the start of a nice big flame war and the comment section is hot with abuse. Just a warning for people it contains obscene language if that's the kind of thing you like the avoid. You will get a clear picture of how the video continues purely from the first 120 seconds. I just want to know what did you think of: - The "debate" - Stephan's review - Peter Joseph's responses - Should Stefan reply to this, if so why/Why not? Or is it just the start of a useless flame war? Personally I don't like to see anybody going at it over anything, so I will not pressure anyone especially Stefan to reply to something like this. I don't think there's much to gain from it, as you pretty much can't use reason and logic with this type of emotional flaming. Take care all I hope to have some productive discussions soon. Cheers. PS. If this topic isn't permitted due to the whole flame war thing, I will gladly delete it.

Sorry for double posting but I wanted to add a recent one just from today: ""no one EVER has to pay tax and they are not forced to. if they wish to participate in our society however, they do. "

I was mentioning how a DRO would be well within it's right to confiscate property, If it was an agreed upon clause in a contract signed voluntarily. The response/tantrum: "you cannot have pure CHOICE and VOLUNTARY decisions if FORCIBLE CONFISCATION is on the table. they are an absolute logical opposite." "your non-aggression concept is bogus as it is based on an entirely mythological understanding of the behaviour of individuals and those of groups and tribes. You believe inherently in the GOODNESS of people which is your major and indeed, FATAL, flaw." "My society includes freedom to live despite inability to pay. it in you are allowed to fail as well as succeed.' "How old are you?" "You just want a gun!"