What is structural violence?

[FriendlyHacker]

"Am not talking about privileges here, unless you think basic human rights are privileges, while I view food, access to education, medical treatment and housing, not as privileges but the very minimal necessary for survival. And when you say they can't have it, is like saying Profit is more important than taking care of human suffering."

 

Please tell us how we can can be as good a person as you. It never occurred to us that things like food were necessary for survival. We are truly shamed and will now accept an RBE (even though you are not "affiliated" with that in any way).

 

I'm not affiliated with the Zeitgeist Movement in anyway, but I am a volunteer over The Venus Project. Those are different things.

 

Are you affiliated with Ron Paul? He's a free market guy too right?

It is not a zero sum game. When my gains are added up and the losses of the person I may be competing against are subtracted they do not necessarily or even often come to zero. The free-market is almost all cooperation and very, very little competition.

Who the hell DIES when they make a loss in the market? If I invest in building a business and it fails I don't DIE. That's a raw state of nature you're thinking of. This along with a view of the market as zero-sum means you are superstitious. Generally superstitions originate in the nonsense we were fed as children. I am willing to bet you're father's views were highly socialist and anti-capitalist.

 

Can you really say that market competition is necessary for providing incentive, regulating price and use of resources, and then call it cooperation?

"Am not talking about privileges here, unless you think basic human rights are privileges, while I view food, access to education, medical treatment and housing, not as privileges but the very minimal necessary for survival. And when you say they can't have it, is like saying Profit is more important than taking care of human suffering."

 

Please tell us how we can can be as good a person as you. It never occurred to us that things like food were necessary for survival. We are truly shamed and will now accept an RBE (even though you are not "affiliated" with that in any way).

 

 

"Have you heard about the Chicago School / Pinochet experiment in Chile? Why you think the lesser the government intervention, more people went bankrupt/hungry? And why it was necessary to use a brutal dictator in order to enforce a free market?"

 

A statist plan run by statists for statists. That was not a free-market. A free market is a market without coercion. That's what it fucking means. If you won't respond to this point will you at least admit that you have acknowledged it?

 

I do acknowledge it was a fascist state, do you acknowledge that the Free Market Guru Milton Friedman is directly responsible for it?

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

I'm not affiliated with the Zeitgeist Movement in anyway, but I am a volunteer over The Venus Project. Those are different things.

 

Are you affiliated with Ron Paul? He's a free market guy too right?

Okay they are two different things. I'm going to start another RBE project called "The Saturn initiative". Now I can say I'm not "affiliated" with Zeitgeist or the Venus project. 

Maybe you should just clearly and unambiguously state what you are arguing FOR so we don't have to waste time wondering whether you're surreptitiously advocating an RBE by throwing cold-water on freedom and free markets.

 

Am I affiliated with Ron Paul. "Affiliated"? I guess not but I would advocate much of what he does and when someone argues with me against those things within the context of Ron Paul I don't just say "Well I'M not affiliated with Ron Paul" and just leave it at that. "Affiliated" is a weasel word. You are an RBE advocate and you are advocating those ideas here. It doesn't really matter whom you are "affiliated" with.

Can you really say that market competition is necessary for providing incentive, regulating price and use of resources, and then call it cooperation?

 

I do acknowledge it was a fascist state, do you acknowledge that the Free Market Guru Milton Friedman is directly responsible for it?

Yes I CAN call it cooperation because it is demonstrably the case. Most businesses fully cooperate with each other. There almost no competition in the market. It's probably less than one percent. In your nutcase mustache twirling conception of the market I'm sure things are dog eat dog and if you lose you die but that is not reality. If I want to exist in a market I have to cooperate with virtually everyone in it. The market is the ultimate community. Where competition exists it is there to provide alternatives for consumers.

 

Hey maybe Milton Friedman is "directly" responsible for it but I'm guessing that "directly" is the weasel word that's being used here. So what if he was? If Milton Friedman advocated any kind of dictatorship for any reason then he was not, by definition, advocating a FREE market. I would guess that the people who directly implemented it and the actual dictator themselves and his cronies are "directly" responsible. But you are an RBEer so you'll do whatever you can to redirect the evils of the state onto the market. 

[Think Free]

Have you heard about the Chicago School / Pinochet experiment in Chile? Why you think the lesser the government intervention, more people went bankrupt/hungry? And why it was necessary to use a brutal dictator in order to enforce a free market?

 

Yes, I have heard of it. As ProfessionalTeabager has pointed out, it was only a move toward liberalization undertaken under political corruption and dictatorship. It is hardly an example of unfettered free market. The hunger and bankruptcy are certainly as much to be blamed on centuries of oppression which proceeded the modest reforms. Free economies can undergo change without causing people to go hungry, and bankruptcy, in that situation, was probably mostly creative destruction anyways. Abrupt changes from statism to free market tend to be capitalized on by the unscrupulous and politically powerful to enrich themselves. It takes time for the free market to undue those usurpations. Today, Chile is tied with Argentina for greatest per-capita GDP in mainland South America, and is the economically freest country in South America.

 

 

 

Am not talking about privileges here, unless you think basic human rights are privileges, while I view food, access to education, medical treatment and housing, not as privileges but the very minimal necessary for survival.

 

You seem to misunderstand what basic human rights are. Rights are not things that are guaranteed to be paid you from the sweat of another man's brow. Rights are the things that belong to you that should not be taken away by force: life, liberty, property. The things you list above are all things that people would have if they had freedom. You need to read Why Nations Fail.

[STer]

Hi, STers. My original claim was that recent famines are caused by states. However, I can also address the idea that states were set up to avoid famine.

 

But first I'd like to mention that I think it was the book Why Nations Fail that makes the argument that the earliest settlements were NOT set up to avoid famine, but were set up to allow people to extract taxes from other people. I believe that claim was based on someone else's work, though. I highly recommend Why Nations Fail, in any case, as it speaks to the issue of how modern states cause modern famine.

 

Anyhow, back to the question: There's nothing inherent to agriculture, villages, settlement, food storage, or famine avoidance that requires a state. Sure, states can take advantage of that stability to take control and tax people, etc., but that's an independent issue. It is the agriculture and storing of food, if anything, that prevents famine, not state taxation of that food.

 

I didn't say states were set up specifically to avoid famine. I said states emerged out of developments focused on avoiding famine.

 

Once food storage comes about, there comes the desire to set up entities to guard that stored food. So then you start having the separation into the class that owns and guards the food and the rest of the population. I think this is part of the genesis of how complex civilization and states develop. The author, Daniel Quinn, basically defines civilized cultures as the ones that lock food away because doing that is so seminal in the beginnings of these separations of classes and growth of complex social structures.

 

I am sure that there are cases where modern states play a role in the emergence of particular cases of famine in particular places. But to really have a fair assessment, the question would be whether more or less of a proportion of the population (note: proportion, not absolute numbers) experiences famine more or less often in the modern world than they did pre-civilization.

[Think Free]

I do acknowledge it was a fascist state, do you acknowledge that the Free Market Guru Milton Friedman is directly responsible for it?

 

Did Friedman put Pinochet in power? Did he design the Chile government according to his theories? Or did he merely influence the economists that drafted some reforms?

 

 

I didn't say states were set up specifically to avoid famine. I said states emerged out of developments focused on avoiding famine.

 

In which case there is no contradiction.

 

I am sure that there are cases where modern states play a role in the emergence of particular cases of famine in particular places. But to really have a fair assessment, the question would be whether more or less of a proportion of the population (note: proportion, not absolute numbers) experiences famine more or less often in the modern world than they did pre-civilization.

 

That makes no sense. You just stated that it wasn't the states that prevented the famine. It would be as if someone was claiming that governments suppress literacy and you respond by saying, "Well, modern governments rely on writing, so, to have a fair assessment the question would be whether more or less of the population is literate now or prior to the invention of writing." That would be the opposite of a fair assessment--that would be as biased and irrational an assessment as you could come up with.

[cynicist]

So I watched that video and I'm still unclear as to what structural violence is. In the about section for that clip I read, "Poverty, also coined as 'Structural Violence', is the most deadly form of violence on Earth". This can't be the correct definition, because it doesn't include voluntary poverty. For example if I'm a college student and I decide to pursue graduate school, I'm voluntarily forgoing the money I could be making if I had a job because I want to pursue a higher education.

 

So clearly it has to do with involuntary poverty, and in the video the examples that are cited involve death from being unable to afford food or medicine. Of course in either example there is no mention of any violence or structure involved, just the claim that poverty is bad. The obvious question to ask is why these African children are dying, despite $50 billion in international aid (source) every year? Of course the answer is that the statist rulers of those countries hoover up the money for their own ends. I have no idea if that is included in the umbrella term "structural violence" since no one can give a precise definition of it, but I find it incredibly annoying that people who use that term will talk about how bad waste or poverty is but not go any further to examine where these conditions originate. (besides of course blaming capitalism without reason or evidence)

[Mike Fleming]

 

I do acknowledge it was a fascist state, do you acknowledge that the Free Market Guru Milton Friedman is directly responsible for it?

 

Milton Friedman had a lot of good things to say about free markets.  However, he thought he could reform the state as an institution.  He was wrong.  He never acknowledged this error to my knowledge.  His son, David, seems to have learnt from it though.

So I watched that video and I'm still unclear as to what structural violence is. In the about section for that clip I read, "Poverty, also coined as 'Structural Violence', is the most deadly form of violence on Earth". This can't be the correct definition, because it doesn't include voluntary poverty. For example if I'm a college student and I decide to pursue graduate school, I'm voluntarily forgoing the money I could be making if I had a job because I want to pursue a higher education.

 

It's just redefining words.  War is Peace, freedom is slavery, poverty is violence, etc... Once you've put the violence label on something that then justifies violence (as a self defence mechanism) to solve it.

[STer]

That makes no sense. You just stated that it wasn't the states that prevented the famine. It would be as if someone was claiming that governments suppress literacy and you respond by saying, "Well, modern governments rely on writing, so, to have a fair assessment the question would be whether more or less of the population is literate now or prior to the invention of writing." That would be the opposite of a fair assessment--that would be as biased and irrational an assessment as you could come up with.

 

No. It would be like if I said modern governments emerged directly from structures designed to promote writing and came about in order to protect literacy-promoting structures. The relationship is a lot deeper than just something like using writing. The reason states emerged isn't just tangentially involving famine-reduction, but directly rooted in famine-reduction strategies. I thought we already agreed on this.

 

Then there is a second issue, which I think is better looked at separately from the first. You point out that modern states have sometimes caused famines. I don't dispute this may be the case. But are you arguing that states have made famine worse overall than it was before civilization? If so, then measuring that requires looking at famine as a whole in relation to population, not just pointing out cases where states caused famines. Giving examples where states caused famine can show that they don't suppress famine to zero. But it doesn't prove that famine is higher in our modern world full of states than it would otherwise be.

[Think Free]

No. It would be like if I said modern governments emerged directly from structures designed to promote writing and came about in order to protect literacy-promoting structures. The relationship is a lot deeper than just something like using writing. The reason states emerged isn't just tangentially involving famine-reduction, but directly rooted in famine-reduction strategies. I thought we already agreed on this.

 Unless your position is that either states are necessary for the famine-preventing measures to exist, or that states are a necessary and unavoidable result of those famine prevention measures, it doesn't matter. And since neither of those claims are rationally defensible, as far as I can tell, let alone anything a libertarian would accept, I don't see why you keep pressing this line of reasoning. I do believe that the development of the state is, at best, tangentially related to the development of agriculture and storage. Again another analogy: Would it make sense to compare the availability to books before and after the invention of the printing press and then claim that, because copyright was invented to protect printed book production that it would make sense to attribute the difference in books to copyright law? No. It would make no sense because the difference in books is clearly the result of the printing press, not the result of copyright law. And since there is no logically necessary connection between the existence of the printing press and the existence of copyright law, it would make no sense to conflate them like that. Likewise, even though (maybe) the state arose in response to agriculture and food storage, there is no logically necessary connection between the existence of one and the other. Since it would clearly be agriculture that was making the difference (if any) in famines, thinking that would tell us anything about the state would be simply irrational.  

Then there is a second issue, which I think is better looked at separately from the first. You point out that modern states have sometimes caused famines. I don't dispute this may be the case. But are you arguing that states have made famine worse overall than it was before civilization? If so, then measuring that requires looking at famine as a whole in relation to population, not just pointing out cases where states caused famines. Giving examples where states caused famine can show that they don't suppress famine to zero. But it doesn't prove that famine is higher in our modern world full of states than it would otherwise be.

I am somewhat astounded that you're here on a libertarian forum and you don't realize what I am suggesting. I am not "arguing that states have made famine worse overall than it was before civilization." That would be a strange position to take--although it is conceivably the case. I am arguing that states have made famine worse overall than they would have been in the absence of the state today, and that almost all modern famines are caused by powerful states and absent in the freest economies.

 

I had assumed that you were a libertarian, but your tendency to conflate the state and civilization makes me wonder if you're a statist, as that is a common statist fallacy.

[STer]

Unless your position is that either states are necessary for the famine-preventing measures to exist, or that states are a necessary and unavoidable result of those famine prevention measures, it doesn't matter. And since neither of those claims are rationally defensible, as far as I can tell, let alone anything a libertarian would accept, I don't see why you keep pressing this line of reasoning. I do believe that the development of the state is, at best, tangentially related to the development of agriculture and storage. Again another analogy: Would it make sense to compare the availability to books before and after the invention of the printing press and then claim that, because copyright was invented to protect printed book production that it would make sense to attribute the difference in books to copyright law? No. It would make no sense because the difference in books is clearly the result of the printing press, not the result of copyright law. And since there is no logically necessary connection between the existence of the printing press and the existence of copyright law, it would make no sense to conflate them like that. Likewise, even though (maybe) the state arose in response to agriculture and food storage, there is no logically necessary connection between the existence of one and the other. Since it would clearly be agriculture that was making the difference (if any) in famines, thinking that would tell us anything about the state would be simply irrational.

The development of the state is not just tangentially related to agriculture and storage. It emerged directly from them as part of the very same movement - one toward food being locked up and owned in order for there to be the possibility of food security. Your analogies continue to be flawed. Copyright law was not developed to protect the very existence of the mass-produced books to avoid a scarcity issue. People didn't say "We are often running out of books, so, in order to assure there will always be enough books, we are going to use copyright." The correct analogy there would be if there were paper shortages that led to periods where books couldn't be made, so storehouses were set up where people accumulated the materials to make books and then needed them to be guarded, leading to book material guards and administrators. These guards and administrators would be the analogy of what the state developed out of.

 

It is not agriculture alone that protects against famines. Unless you have proper storage and guarding of the food, it will not be there when you need it. It is the guarding and protection function over the food that I think developed into the state. 

I am somewhat astounded that you're here on a libertarian forum and you don't realize what I am suggesting. I am not "arguing that states have made famine worse overall than it was before civilization." That would be a strange position to take--although it is conceivably the case. I am arguing that states have made famine worse overall than they would have been in the absence of the state today, and that almost all modern famines are caused by powerful states and absent in the freest economies. I had assumed that you were a libertarian, but your tendency to conflate the state and civilization makes me wonder if you're a statist, as that is a common statist fallacy.

First of all, I thought this was "the largest philosophical conversation in the world," a philosophy forum, not a "libertarian forum." If it is a "libertarian forum" then it should be advertised openly as such. I certainly realize most people here are anarchists or at least libertarians, which is fine. But the forum is put forth as just plain old unbiased philosophy.

 

OK so you admit that the state may have reduced famine compared to what would have happened had the state never come along. But you believe that now, were the state to go away, due to other factors, famine would be lower without the state than with it. That's a legitimate stance to take. I have a reply to that. But first, am I understanding this stance correctly?

 

I think it's misleading to ask where the famines occur since, when states cause famines, it's often a state causing a famine in another country, not necessarily in its own country. We live in a global world when it comes to food and how it is distributed and administered. It's kind of like how when you talk about guns people point out that places with strict gun laws often have higher gun crime. But so what? As long as the laws differ in the neighboring states, guns can just flow in from there. So I just don't see a one-to-one correlation between type of government and famine in that particular country. Some of the worst issues in Africa came from meddling by other states, not their own (although plenty do come from their own states too, don't get me wrong).

 

I didn't conflate the state and civilization as the same thing. I said they emerged as part of the same forces, the same movements. Your tendency to misread what I'm saying and project connections that I was careful not to make, using very precise language, makes me read certain things about you, as well.

[cynicist]

It's just redefining words.  War is Peace, freedom is slavery, poverty is violence, etc... Once you've put the violence label on something that then justifies violence (as a self defence mechanism) to solve it.

 

That sounds accurate to me. Similar to how there isn't necessarily any direct violence involved in poverty so they add the word "structural" to make it sound more legitimate. It is somewhat amusing to me how the state is basically direct violence that has been abstracted through language, and how it could be described as structural violence in the sense that it is violent but depends on social structures/institutions to support its continuation, but I would never expect anything that clear as a definition.

[Think Free]

The development of the state is not just tangentially related to agriculture and storage. It emerged directly from them as part of the very same movement - one toward food being locked up and owned in order for there to be the possibility of food security. Your analogies continue to be flawed. Copyright law was not developed to protect the very existence of the mass-produced books to avoid a scarcity issue. People didn't say "We are often running out of books, so, in order to assure there will always be enough books, we are going to use copyright." The correct analogy there would be if there were paper shortages that led to periods where books couldn't be made, so storehouses were set up where people accumulated the materials to make books and then needed them to be guarded, leading to book material guards and administrators. These guards and administrators would be the analogy of what the state developed out of.

 It is not agriculture alone that protects against famines. Unless you have proper storage and guarding of the food, it will not be there when you need it. It is the guarding and protection function over the food that I think developed into the state.

 

"Emerged directly from them as part of the very same movement," "emerged as part of the same forces, the same movements," and "developed out of" (besides being vague and squirrely) are just ways of saying, "not necessary for and not a necessary and unavoidable result of" while making the connection sound as necessary as you can. You know how I know this? Because you claim that you are not conflating the state with the anti-famine measures. But as I've already stated, unless you're positing a logical necessity, it's irrelevant.

 

As for your analogy: Sure, let's take it. We're still left with two glaring flaws in your reasoning: a) the fact that your anaology doesn't include the state, but only "what the state [(presumably)] developed out of." Trying to draw conclusions from this would be like trying to draw conclusions about civil-war era United States by looking at the original 13 colonies. b) the guards, etc., don't contribute directly toward preventing famine--it's possible to take other measures to protect the grain by, for example, living in front of the grain store. So, while having guards is one possible development from the practice of agriculture and grain storage, it's only one possibility, and therefore doesn't result necessarily from the situation. Now, note that this second point isn't critical--it just shows that the state is at least two non-necessary steps away from famine avoidance, when only one is necessary to disarm your reasoning.

 

 

First of all, I thought this was "the largest philosophical conversation in the world," a philosophy forum, not a "libertarian forum." If it is a "libertarian forum" then it should be advertised openly as such. I certainly realize most people here are anarchists or at least libertarians, which is fine. But the forum is put forth as just plain old unbiased philosophy.

 

My point is that if you realize most people here are anarchists or libertarians, you should know that we believe the state is an unnecessary parasite on civilization, not some sort of enabler of civilization.

 

 

OK so you admit that the state may have reduced famine compared to what would have happened had the state never come along.

 

If the first states were minarchist states, then I suppose they could have contributed in a small way toward reducing famine, but that the major reductions (if they indeed occurred) would almost certainly have resulted from the technology of agriculture and the storing of grain.

 

 

I think it's misleading to ask where the famines occur since, when states cause famines, it's often a state causing a famine in another country, not necessarily in its own country. We live in a global world when it comes to food and how it is distributed and administered. It's kind of like how when you talk about guns people point out that places with strict gun laws often have higher gun crime. But so what? As long as the laws differ in the neighboring states, guns can just flow in from there. So I just don't see a one-to-one correlation between type of government and famine in that particular country. Some of the worst issues in Africa came from meddling by other states, not their own (although plenty do come from their own states too, don't get me wrong).

 

Because food is such a fundamental necessity, it would be almost impossible, without direct violent meddling, for a country, or even a set of countries, to force famine onto a another country unless that country were a place like Singapore where they (I presume) don't have enough farmland to support their population, or, the country's own government uses force to impoverish the country, loot the resources, and remove all motive for producing anything but the barest subsistence crop yields. And if you think African famines are not almost entirely the result of their own governments, you need to read Why Nations Fail.

[STer]

"Emerged directly from them as part of the very same movement," "emerged as part of the same forces, the same movements," and "developed out of" (besides being vague and squirrely) are just ways of saying, "not necessary for and not a necessary and unavoidable result of" while making the connection sound as necessary as you can. You know how I know this? Because you claim that you are not conflating the state with the anti-famine measures. But as I've already stated, unless you're positing a logical necessity, it's irrelevant. As for your analogy: Sure, let's take it. We're still left with two glaring flaws in your reasoning: a) the fact that your anaology doesn't include the state, but only "what the state [(presumably)] developed out of." Trying to draw conclusions from this would be like trying to draw conclusions about civil-war era United States by looking at the original 13 colonies. b) the guards, etc., don't contribute directly toward preventing famine--it's possible to take other measures to protect the grain by, for example, living in front of the grain store. So, while having guards is one possible development from the practice of agriculture and grain storage, it's only one possibility, and therefore doesn't result necessarily from the situation. Now, note that this second point isn't critical--it just shows that the state is at least two non-necessary steps away from famine avoidance, when only one is necessary to disarm your reasoning.   My point is that if you realize most people here are anarchists or libertarians, you should know that we believe the state is an unnecessary parasite on civilization, not some sort of enabler of civilization.   If the first states were minarchist states, then I suppose they could have contributed in a small way toward reducing famine, but that the major reductions (if they indeed occurred) would almost certainly have resulted from the technology of agriculture and the storing of grain.   Because food is such a fundamental necessity, it would be almost impossible, without direct violent meddling, for a country, or even a set of countries, to force famine onto a another country unless that country were a place like Singapore where they (I presume) don't have enough farmland to support their population, or, the country's own government uses force to impoverish the country, loot the resources, and remove all motive for producing anything but the barest subsistence crop yields. And if you think African famines are not almost entirely the result of their own governments, you need to read Why Nations Fail.

Frankly, I'm not even sure what I'm saying (referring to things I said, not things you project onto what I said) that you actually disagree with. How about, if you disagree with something I said, quote exactly what I said and then point out your disagreement. Because what you have done so far, in the main, is take things I've said, then make up some additional thing I didn't say and argue against that straw man.From what I can tell your main argument is "The protection and storage of food didn't have to lead to the state." And my response is "Where did I say it had to? I simply said it did."One of the most frustrating parts of this forum is that among a lot of very intelligent, thoughtful people are some that are so rageful about the state that they will project onto almost any thread and just start ranting about how horrible the state is, even when you didn't say anything to draw that argument.Go back through my posts in this thread. If you can find a place I said "The state had to emerge and nothing else could have happened." or "The state is a wonderful boon to humanity and the greatest thing since sliced bread" I'd be happy to see it. Otherwise, you are arguing a straw man.From now on, please respond only to things I actually say and not things you extrapolate from what I say on your own.

 

As for countries causing famine in other countries, you say "without direct violent meddling" as if that doesn't happen. How about all of colonialism?

[Think Free]

Frankly, I'm not even sure what I'm saying (referring to things I said, not things you project onto what I said) that you actually disagree with. How about, if you disagree with something I said, quote exactly what I said and then point out your disagreement. Because what you have done so far, in the main, is take things I've said, then make up some additional thing I didn't say and argue against that straw man.From what I can tell your main argument is "The protection and storage of food didn't have to lead to the state." And my response is "Where did I say it had to? I simply said it did."One of the most frustrating parts of this forum is that among a lot of very intelligent, thoughtful people are some that are so rageful about the state that they will project onto almost any thread and just start ranting about how horrible the state is, even when you didn't say anything to draw that argument.Go back through my posts in this thread. If you can find a place I said "The state had to emerge and nothing else could have happened." or "The state is a wonderful boon to humanity and the greatest thing since sliced bread" I'd be happy to see it. Otherwise, you are arguing a straw man.From now on, please respond only to things I actually say and not things you extrapolate from what I say on your own.

 

My beef is with this claim you made right here below. My contention is that what you're suggesting is a useless comparison.

 

But to really have a fair assessment, the question would be whether more or less of a proportion of the population (note: proportion, not absolute numbers) experiences famine more or less often in the modern world than they did pre-civilization.

 

 

As for countries causing famine in other countries, you say "without direct violent meddling" as if that doesn't happen. How about all of colonialism?

 

Colonialism is a perfect example of countries conducting direct violent meddling in other countries. I don't at all mean to imply that it doesn't happen, by any means. But we're talking about structural violence here, which is only novel if it doesn't rely on normal violence. As for whether colonization directly caused famine or not, I don't know because I haven't researched it, but I think we could all at least agree that it's a bad thing whether it caused famine or not. Certainly it did nothing to prevent the rise of the modern oppressive dictatorships that cause famine.

[Magnus]

One of the most frustrating parts of this forum is that among a lot of very intelligent, thoughtful people are some that are so rageful about the state that they will project onto almost any thread and just start ranting about how horrible the state is, even when you didn't say anything to draw that argument. 

 

Have you considered the possibility that Statism is the root cause of an extremely large number of complex social problems?  That the problem goes beyond merely that Statist Faction A's agenda is better or worse than Statist Faction B's agenda, but that a pervasive blindness to the deleterious effects of all forms of Statism might be the single most important contributor to human misery, suffering, poverty and lost economic opportunity? 

 

If that is true, would it not be a gross dereliction of our obligation to help humanity, as intelligent, thoughtful people, if we failed to explain the root, systemic causes that most people do not understand? 

[powder]

When I first heard Peter Joseph talk about structural violence in the video debate with Stef I was curious to learn exactly what he meant by that and wanted to understand if it was different from the kind of human misery that is simply caused by the virus of state intervention in society.  

 

PJ never defined it specifically in the debate and Stef never asked him to do that directly so I started to ask around here.  My desire to understand was genuine even though some members here questioned my motives.  It looks like friendlyhacker dude has been bucked off this debate and I am having trouble understanding his motives for sure.  

 

As for the whole structural violence thing, I posted a video link in the other thread where Stef does address it directly and together with subsequent posts on the forum and in this thread I can really see no evidence of how it is anything but a bunch of nasty stuff caused by state intervention.  

[Josh F]

Structural Violence:  I was forced to attend a high school, under threat of violence, which required me to read the Communist Manifesto and study gender and racial theories from a strictly socialist view point.  That is structural violence, the way children are conscripted and forced into this kind of indoctrination.  The structure is called government, and the violence starts when we're children. 

[STer]

My beef is with this claim you made right here below. My contention is that what you're suggesting is a useless comparison.

 

 

 

 

Colonialism is a perfect example of countries conducting direct violent meddling in other countries. I don't at all mean to imply that it doesn't happen, by any means. But we're talking about structural violence here, which is only novel if it doesn't rely on normal violence. As for whether colonization directly caused famine or not, I don't know because I haven't researched it, but I think we could all at least agree that it's a bad thing whether it caused famine or not. Certainly it did nothing to prevent the rise of the modern oppressive dictatorships that cause famine.

 

My claim is that if you want to know whether states have led to increased or decreased famine, you have to look at the proportion of people that experienced famine before states vs. after states, not just look at isolated anecdotal stories. That's all I was saying. You seemed to me to be saying that, because you can name examples where states caused famines, that proves that states, overall, have relatively increased famine. All I was pointing out is that naming specific isolated cases like that doesn't prove any general point about the relationship between states and famines. You'd have to compare famine pre-state vs. post-state on the whole. In fact, you have to do even more than that to determine if the state was the causal factor or there is only a correlation, not a causation. So again anecdotal examples of states causing famine simply don't show that states, on the whole, have led to relatively more famine. Do you disagree with that statement about methodology necessary to reach a certain conclusion?

 

Perhaps you've misunderstood that I am somehow arguing for the term "structural violence." I'm not. I'm quite confused by exactly what the term means myself. I wasn't supporting the use of that term. I actually find it a pretty unhelpful term in and of itself. My point with colonialism is to show that famine in a given country may be state-caused, but not by that country's own government. It can be caused by another government meddling. The larger point of that was to show that famine is a global issue with influences coming in and out from all over the world. Looking at one country in isolation doesn't tell the whole story.

 

So you can see that overall, I'm just arguing for the fact that to really understand what goes on with famine, we have to look at the whole system, not isolated cases within it.

Have you considered the possibility that Statism is the root cause of an extremely large number of complex social problems?  That the problem goes beyond merely that Statist Faction A's agenda is better or worse than Statist Faction B's agenda, but that a pervasive blindness to the deleterious effects of all forms of Statism might be the single most important contributor to human misery, suffering, poverty and lost economic opportunity? 

 

If that is true, would it not be a gross dereliction of our obligation to help humanity, as intelligent, thoughtful people, if we failed to explain the root, systemic causes that most people do not understand? 

 

It's almost like you read what I typed and then did exactly what I complained about. My point is you can't seem to have any discussion on this forum that even mentions the word "state" without someone going "state....state...I hate the state...let me start listing reasons the state is bad." This happens even when you're not discussing whether the state, as a whole , is "good" or "bad" but talking about some other element or repercussion of it.

 

It would be like if you disliked a certain actor and I was talking about a movie they were in and wanted to just discuss the movie and you kept jumping in railing about how much you hate that actor and why they're terrible. Ok, great, I get it. You don't like that actor. And you can go on 100 threads dedicated to the topic of how much that actor sucks. But we're not even discussing whether they are good or bad in this particular discussion. We are just discussing this other topic that their name happens to come up in because they play a part in it.

 

Does every single thread have to be about listing the reasons government is terrible? And, more to the point, if you see someone having any discussion other than "government is terrible" do you have to jump in and remind them that it's terrible every single time because, if they aren't listing the reasons it's terrible at all times, they must be a huge fan of it?

 

You think it's a "dereliction of duty" if you don't respond to every thread that so much as mentions the government with the same litany of complaints about the government? Personally, I think the dereliction of duty comes from the fact that, when you do that, you start to turn people off because it becomes robotic and you start to look like a Pavlovian anti-government rant machine.

[Think Free]

My claim is that if you want to know whether states have led to increased or decreased famine, you have to look at the proportion of people that experienced famine before states vs. after states, not just look at isolated anecdotal stories. That's all I was saying.

 Well, when you use the phrase, "modern world" to mean "after states" and "pre-civilization" to mean "before states" you can understand how I might be confused into thinking you were talking nonsense. I agree that if we had good information on the rates of famine in Mesopotamia in the 100 years before the invention of the state and the 100 years after, that would be interesting and probably even relevant. However, I doubt we have that information. 

My claim is that if you want to know whether states have led to increased or decreased famine, you have to look at the proportion of people that experienced famine before states vs. after states, not just look at isolated anecdotal stories. That's all I was saying. You seemed to me to be saying that, because you can name examples where states caused famines, that proves that states, overall, have relatively increased famine. All I was pointing out is that naming specific isolated cases like that doesn't prove any general point about the relationship between states and famines. You'd have to compare famine pre-state vs. post-state on the whole. In fact, you have to do even more than that to determine if the state was the causal factor or there is only a correlation, not a causation. So again anecdotal examples of states causing famine simply don't show that states, on the whole, have led to relatively more famine. Do you disagree with that statement about methodology necessary to reach a certain conclusion?

 You seem to be missing the point. My claim was that the modern famines (defined as scenarios where significant numbers of people starve to death) used as examples of structural violence are all due to state violence and therefore inadmissible as examples of "structural" violence. I haven't provided any "anecdotes" at all. Since studies of comparable pre- and post-state scenarios would be practically impossible, if I were to argue that states overall have relatively increased famine (which I believe) I would do it on logical (eg. challenge the claim that states prevent famines) and historical (ie. I would look at cases of famine and show how states caused the famine--you might call this anecdotal) grounds. But that is not what I am doing here. 

Perhaps you've misunderstood that I am somehow arguing for the term "structural violence." I'm not. I'm quite confused by exactly what the term means myself. I wasn't supporting the use of that term. I actually find it a pretty unhelpful term in and of itself. My point with colonialism is to show that famine in a given country may be state-caused, but not by that country's own government. It can be caused by another government meddling. The larger point of that was to show that famine is a global issue with influences coming in and out from all over the world. Looking at one country in isolation doesn't tell the whole story.

 

So you can see that overall, I'm just arguing for the fact that to really understand what goes on with famine, we have to look at the whole system, not isolated cases within it.

 "Structural violence" is only relevant because that is the topic of this thread, and it was the concept I was challenging when you challenged my assessment. I don't see why you were unable to deduce my point, given those facts, and instead seemed to think I was making another claim, but consideration of your misunderstanding makes your posts make a little more sense. I still disagree with your claim that I said I disagree with. Your point about colonialism was a point acknowledged by my initial caveat, "without direct violent meddling." Your larger point does not follow from your smaller point unless "influences" is acknowledged to simply mean "colonization." In which case it it just your smaller point, again, which I had already made prior to you making it. In any case, looking at one country in isolation does pretty much tell the whole story of famine if the government is so heavily taxing farmers that they barely produce more than they can eat. Sure, there can be other mitigating or encouraging factors, but the government crushing agriculture (and the economy more broadly) is the most important thing you need to know about the cause of the famine.

[STer]

 Well, when you use the phrase, "modern world" to mean "after states" and "pre-civilization" to mean "before states" you can understand how I might be confused into thinking you were talking nonsense. I agree that if we had good information on the rates of famine in Mesopotamia in the 100 years before the invention of the state and the 100 years after, that would be interesting and probably even relevant. However, I doubt we have that information. 

 You seem to be missing the point. My claim was that the modern famines (defined as scenarios where significant numbers of people starve to death) used as examples of structural violence are all due to state violence and therefore inadmissible as examples of "structural" violence. I haven't provided any "anecdotes" at all. Since studies of comparable pre- and post-state scenarios would be practically impossible, if I were to argue that states overall have relatively increased famine (which I believe) I would do it on logical (eg. challenge the claim that states prevent famines) and historical (ie. I would look at cases of famine and show how states caused the famine--you might call this anecdotal) grounds. But that is not what I am doing here. 

 "Structural violence" is only relevant because that is the topic of this thread, and it was the concept I was challenging when you challenged my assessment. I don't see why you were unable to deduce my point, given those facts, and instead seemed to think I was making another claim, but consideration of your misunderstanding makes your posts make a little more sense. I still disagree with your claim that I said I disagree with. Your point about colonialism was a point acknowledged by my initial caveat, "without direct violent meddling." Your larger point does not follow from your smaller point unless "influences" is acknowledged to simply mean "colonization." In which case it it just your smaller point, again, which I had already made prior to you making it. In any case, looking at one country in isolation does pretty much tell the whole story of famine if the government is so heavily taxing farmers that they barely produce more than they can eat. Sure, there can be other mitigating or encouraging factors, but the government crushing agriculture (and the economy more broadly) is the most important thing you need to know about the cause of the famine.

 

There seems to be some confusion over history here. In my understanding, civilization started about 10,000 years ago. Around that time is when city-states started to emerge, hence the name "civilization" which means based on cities. My understanding is that the rise of civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand and that is why civilization has the name that it does.

 

As Wikipedia puts it:

 

"The emergence of civilization is generally associated with the final stages of the Neolithic Revolution, a slow cumulative process occurring independently over many locations between 10,000 and 3,000 BCE, culminating in the relatively rapid process of state formation, a political development associated with the appearance of a governing elite."

 

Is your understanding different? I'm not sure why you seem to think civilization and the rise of states do not go hand in hand.

 

If we don't have information about famine rates before states to compare to famine rates after, then I don't know how you can claim to know scientifically whether states increased or decreased famine overall. I think there may be more data than we're aware of. It's remarkable what historians and archaeologist can sometimes figure out about the past. But if you are saying we don't have the data to compare, then you should be the first to admit we don't know.

 

OK, if you are saying that the particular examples that are pointed to as cases of "structural violence" are actually just cases of state violence, I understand now. The challenge for people who support the idea of "structural violence" is to show examples where violence is occurring that is not emerging from the state. And you are saying the example of famine does not do that. I think we're clear now.

 

Looking at one country in isolation would only tell the whole story if the only factor in a country's famine was the action of its own government. But in many cases, as we've seen, there are many factors and sometimes multiple governments involved in what is going on. And the food supply is a global system at this point. The amount of harvest in Nebraska has effects in Singapore and vice-versa. It's all interconnected.

[Think Free]

There seems to be some confusion over history here. In my understanding, civilization started about 10,000 years ago. Around that time is when city-states started to emerge, hence the name "civilization" which means based on cities. My understanding is that the rise of civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand and that is why civilization has the name that it does.

 

As Wikipedia puts it:

 

"The emergence of civilization is generally associated with the final stages of the Neolithic Revolution, a slow cumulative process occurring independently over many locations between 10,000 and 3,000 BCE, culminating in the relatively rapid process of state formation, a political development associated with the appearance of a governing elite."

 

Is your understanding different? I'm not sure why you seem to think civilization and the rise of states do not go hand in hand.

 

If we don't have information about famine rates before states to compare to famine rates after, then I don't know how you can claim to know scientifically whether states increased or decreased famine overall. I think there may be more data than we're aware of. It's remarkable what historians and archaeologist can sometimes figure out about the past. But if you are saying we don't have the data to compare, then you should be the first to admit we don't know.

 

Wow! I can't believe that you've fallen right back into the two mistakes that I just pointed out.

 

The first are your vague and squirrely connections you make between agriculture and state, now joined by the phrase, "go hand in hand," whatever that means. If it's not logical necessity, it's not relevant, for the reasons I've already explained. Notice how stretched your connection is here: from agriculture to "civilization" to cities to city-states to states, all of which are tenuous connections (etymology, of course, means almost nothing). Notice that Wikipedia says it culminated in the development of the state, meaning that that was the last step. A last step doesn't have to be taken at all unless there's some sort of logical or causal necessity behind it.

 

Second, you still seem to be thinking that I am arguing about whether states increased famines or not. I am not.

 

I am literally astounded that we're still retreading this.

 

 

OK, if you are saying that the particular examples that are pointed to as cases of "structural violence" are actually just cases of state violence, I understand now. The challenge for people who support the idea of "structural violence" is to show examples where violence is occurring that is not emerging from the state. And you are saying the example of famine does not do that. I think we're clear now.

 

Yes. That's what I'm saying.

 

 

Looking at one country in isolation would only tell the whole story if the only factor in a country's famine was the action of its own government. But in many cases, as we've seen, there are many factors and sometimes multiple governments involved in what is going on. And the food supply is a global system at this point. The amount of harvest in Nebraska has effects in Singapore and vice-versa. It's all interconnected.

 

The amount of harvest in Nebraska has effects in Singapore because Singapore doesn't have an impoverished citizenry with nothing to provide the global market. Harvests in Nebraska mean almost nothing to people who can't afford to pay for the transportation of the food to where they live. If the countries in question had been allowed by their government to grow their agriculture and economies, shortfalls in Nebraskan harvests would just enrich those countries and Nebraskan surpluses would provide more food for those countries. I am talking about the efficient causes of modern famine here and you're saying, "Yeah, but we live in a global economy." It's like I'm saying, "The car crashed because the breaks stopped working," and you say, "But weather conditions effect driving."

[powder]

STer, can you provide examples of structural violence in society that are not symptomatic of state influence?  Or has that been done and I missed it.  I remember PJ mentioning how a woman was forced into prostitution because she could not get by, and that this was an example of structural violence, yet it was easily explained away by other factors.  

[STer]

Wow! I can't believe that you've fallen right back into the two mistakes that I just pointed out. The first are your vague and squirrely connections you make between agriculture and state, now joined by the phrase, "go hand in hand," whatever that means. If it's not logical necessity, it's not relevant, for the reasons I've already explained. Notice how stretched your connection is here: from agriculture to "civilization" to cities to city-states to states, all of which are tenuous connections (etymology, of course, means almost nothing). Notice that Wikipedia says it culminated in the development of the state, meaning that that was the last step. A last step doesn't have to be taken at all unless there's some sort of logical or causal necessity behind it.

You seem to have just committed the most blatant misquote yet. I said "My understanding is that the rise of civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand" You the said "The first are your vague and squirrely connections you make between agriculture and state, now joined by the phrase, "go hand in hand,"" Notice how I said civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand and you changed it to agriculture and the state going hand in hand. You seem to be right back to arguing straw men. My statement was "Civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand." When Wikipedia says civilization culminates in the rise of states, that is making the connection even deeper, not looser. They are saying not only do they go together in time but one was the direct outgrowth of the other. Do you disagree that civilization and the rise of the state go hand in hand and that the state arose directly from civilization? If you agree, then stop making up things to argue that I didn't say. If you disagree, that's fine. But you disagree with me and Wikipedia and most scholars of civilization I'm aware of. If you argue any other point different than the one I just made again, please don't pretend to be quoting me. 

Second, you still seem to be thinking that I am arguing about whether states increased famines or not. I am not. I am literally astounded that we're still retreading this.

Sorry that was just because I hadn't gotten to the rest of my response yet. I think this part is cleared up now. 

Yes. That's what I'm saying.

Got it. 

The amount of harvest in Nebraska has effects in Singapore because Singapore doesn't have an impoverished citizenry with nothing to provide the global market. Harvests in Nebraska mean almost nothing to people who can't afford to pay for the transportation of the food to where they live. If the countries in question had been allowed by their government to grow their agriculture and economies, shortfalls in Nebraskan harvests would just enrich those countries and Nebraskan surpluses would provide more food for those countries. I am talking about the efficient causes of modern famine here and you're saying, "Yeah, but we live in a global economy." It's like I'm saying, "The car crashed because the breaks stopped working," and you say, "But weather conditions effect driving."

I chose Singapore completely arbitrarily. You could have picked any country on earth. The point is the system is global and all interconnected. Countries are not isolated entities unaffected by the rest of the world. Even ones that try to be like North Korea can't actually accomplish that.

 

No it's like you saying "the car crashed because the brakes stopped working" and I say "yeah but those brakes have parts in them from 5 different factories, were tested in another place, and so on. So there may be multiple factors involved in them breaking." It seems like repeatedly you are getting these analogies wrong

STer, can you provide examples of structural violence in society that are not symptomatic of state influence?  Or has that been done and I missed it.  I remember PJ mentioning how a woman was forced into prostitution because she could not get by, and that this was an example of structural violence, yet it was easily explained away by other factors.  

 

I have an intuition about what PJ means by "structural violence." But I think the term is highly problematic and unhelpful. I wish he would stop using it and replace it with more concrete, specific terms.

 

I can't provide an example of "structural violence" of any kind without a clear definition of it, which I have yet to hear.

 

I could take a guess that one of the main things people like PJ worry about, which they express in the term "structural violence," is hoarding of resources and opportunities. But I wish he would just say "hoarding" and then talk about the problems of hoarding directly. Some might say hoarding is enabled by the state, some might disagree. But at least then people could talk directly about what the concern is. "Structural violence" is too general to even know what it refers to in my view.

[powder]

 

 

I have an intuition about what PJ means by "structural violence." But I think the term is highly problematic and unhelpful. I wish he would stop using it and replace it with more concrete, specific terms.

 

I can't provide an example of "structural violence" of any kind without a clear definition of it, which I have yet to hear.

 

I could take a guess that one of the main things people like PJ worry about, which they express in the term "structural violence," is hoarding of resources and opportunities. But I wish he would just say "hoarding" and then talk about the problems of hoarding directly. Some might say hoarding is enabled by the state, some might disagree. But at least then people could talk directly about what the concern is. "Structural violence" is too general to even know what it refers to in my view.

I understand Ster.  I too was confused and curious about the term and how it was used and not at all clearly defined.  

 

Still, I am pretty sure PJ used the prostitution example, as well as the one of a man abusing his family because he was down and out in the work situation, and the personal example of his own work related difficulties as directly caused by 'structural violence'.  Have I got that wrong?

 

Would the 'hoarding' thing be based on the idea that PJ raised about amassing resources at the expense of others because of scarcity - he seemed to suggest that it was a psychological imperative of some sort, but never really made much of a case for that either.  I would be interested to hear the case you would make for the 'hoarding' thing.  

[STer]

I understand Ster.  I too was confused and curious about the term and how it was used and not at all clearly defined.  

 

Still, I am pretty sure PJ used the prostitution example, as well as the one of a man abusing his family because he was down and out in the work situation, and the personal example of his own work related difficulties as directly caused by 'structural violence'.  Have I got that wrong?

 

Would the 'hoarding' thing be based on the idea that PJ raised about amassing resources at the expense of others because of scarcity - he seemed to suggest that it was a psychological imperative of some sort, but never really made much of a case for that either.  I would be interested to hear the case you would make for the 'hoarding' thing.  

 

Yes I do think, now that you remind me, that the prostitute and the burned-out abusive family man were used as examples. But I'd want to make sure they were examples of "structural violence" in his view before definitely treating them as such. If they are, then it would point to another element of what he might mean by the term, which has to do with behavior being driven by influences other than what is going on directly in the situation at hand.

 

It's interesting because I consider Systems Thinking one of the most important fields. In Systems Thinking, there is a tenet that says "structure creates behavior." And to some extent that is true. Individualists will say "No, individuals choose their behavior." And both are right to some extent. People do make choices. But those choices, we see time and again, when we look at large-scale behavior, appear not to be independent of other influences, even when we think they are. When you put people in certain structures, certain types of patterns tend to emerge statistically. We can often predict them, even though we don't necessarily ask each person about their individual choice.

 

So how do you explain this? Are individuals choosing or are they just at the mercy of the structures they're in? Well it's one of those paradoxes that comes up when you have emergent properties. They act as individuals at one level and they act as part of a larger system at the same time. They are holons - both wholes in themselves and parts of larger wholes at the same time.

 

So I do think Peter has a point with the "structural" part. I just don't know that he should be using the term "violence." He should just be talking about structural "influences." By throwing in the word "violence" it seems needlessly and detrimentally provocative and controversial.

 

With hoarding, I just think Peter sees the current system - (and speculates that a free market system would do this too) - as tending to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few while others go deprived. No doubt that when this does happen, it creates a certain structure that influences behavior, often for the worse. But again, calling that "violence" is needlessly provocative. It's enough to say structures with such inequality influence behavior in unhealthy ways. And that, of course, still leaves the debate about whether such an outcome is really just a consequence of the current system not being a free market. His refusal to admit we don't currently have a free market and to try to draw conclusions about the free market directly from the current system is really misguided.

 

The incentive for "artificial scarcity" is another issue he is concerned with, but I'm not sure if that ties into "structural violence" or not.

[Think Free]

You seem to have just committed the most blatant misquote yet. I said "My understanding is that the rise of civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand" You the said "The first are your vague and squirrely connections you make between agriculture and state, now joined by the phrase, "go hand in hand,"" Notice how I said civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand and you changed it to agriculture and the state going hand in hand. You seem to be right back to arguing straw men.

 

We were arguing the connection between agriculture and state. The connection between civilization and cities/states is only relevant if it is a connection between agriculture and states. It's not a straw man if I am correctly interpreting your argument. If you want to claim that you're making irrelevant arguments... well, there's not much point in that. 

But even if you amend what I said to be "between civilization and cities/states," it does almost nothing to diminish the force of my argument, which is based on the semantic emptiness and/or irrelevance of "goes hand in hand."

 

 

My statement was "Civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand." When Wikipedia says civilization culminates in the rise of states, that is making the connection even deeper, not looser. They are saying not only do they go together in time but one was the direct outgrowth of the other.

 

...and now we add "direct outgrowth." Unless this means a necessary result of agriculture... well, you know the rest.

 

 

Do you disagree that civilization and the rise of the state go hand in hand and that the state arose directly from civilization? If you agree, then stop making up things to argue that I didn't say. If you disagree, that's fine. But you disagree with me and Wikipedia and most scholars of civilization I'm aware of.

 

"Go hand in hand?" "Arose directly from?" Whatever those mean, my claim is that none of those connections, or the others you've made, make the comparison you've suggested anything other than a irrelevant comparison, as I've always claimed.

 

 

No it's like you saying "the car crashed because the brakes stopped working" and I say "yeah but those brakes have parts in them from 5 different factories, were tested in another place, and so on. So there may be multiple factors involved in them breaking." It seems like repeatedly you are getting these analogies wrong

 

This is pretty comic on a couple levels:

 

1. You just ignored my analogy and, without providing any justification, replaced it with your own (wrong, as demonstrated below) analogy that you think makes your case stronger...

 

2. But, in fact if, your analogy is correct then you've lost the debate because "breaks not working" is analogous to government violence, and in your analogy you've accepted that it is government violence that causes modern famine and not structural violence. You're (possibly correct) assertion that government violence is due to many international factors is irrelevant--unless you're making the laughable claim that dictators are forced by international structural violence into coercing their own people into starvation (while they sit fat and happy).

[STer]

We were arguing the connection between agriculture and state. The connection between civilization and cities/states is only relevant if it is a connection between agriculture and states. It's not a straw man if I am correctly interpreting your argument. If you want to claim that you're making irrelevant arguments... well, there's not much point in that. 

But even if you amend what I said to be "between civilization and cities/states," it does almost nothing to diminish the force of my argument, which is based on the semantic emptiness and/or irrelevance of "goes hand in hand."

 

 

 

...and now we add "direct outgrowth." Unless this means a necessary result of agriculture... well, you know the rest.

 

 

 

"Go hand in hand?" "Arose directly from?" Whatever those mean, my claim is that none of those connections, or the others you've made, make the comparison you've suggested anything other than a irrelevant comparison, as I've always claimed.

 

 

 

This is pretty comic on a couple levels:

 

1. You just ignored my analogy and, without providing any justification, replaced it with your own (wrong, as demonstrated below) analogy that you think makes your case stronger...

 

2. But, in fact if, your analogy is correct then you've lost the debate because "breaks not working" is analogous to government violence, and in your analogy you've accepted that it is government violence that causes modern famine and not structural violence. You're (possibly correct) assertion that government violence is due to many international factors is irrelevant--unless you're making the laughable claim that dictators are forced by international structural violence into coercing their own people into starvation (while they sit fat and happy).

 

I notice that every time I say something, you disagree with something else, and I point out that you misquoted me, your next move is to talk about "relevance." I connect civilization and states, you misquote me as saying agriculture and states, I point that out. Instead of saying "Sorry, yes you said civilization and states, my mistake, we do agree on that." instead you start talking about "relevance."

 

If you think what I'm saying is not relevant, then why waste your time responding? If you agree with what I say great. If you disagree with what I say, fine. But to respond to things I didn't say, then refuse to retract when I point that out, and then just start saying my comments are irrelevant doesn't make much sense. I'm starting to wonder if we're even discussing the same point here or you think we're having a different discussion than I do for a different purpose.

 

I already clarified the "hand in hand" comment by saying "My statement was "Civilization and the rise of cities/states went hand in hand." When Wikipedia says civilization culminates in the rise of states, that is making the connection even deeper, not looser. They are saying not only do they go together in time but one was the direct outgrowth of the other."

 

So what I am saying is "hand in hand", in this case, turns out to reflect more than just correlation. City/states emerged as a direct result of civilization. They were the "culmination" of that process of civilization. So bringing up "hand in hand" as if it wasn't already qualified is, rather than a misquote, just ignoring something I already addressed.

 

"Unless this means a necessary result of agriculture... well, you know the rest." - Yes, the rest is you take what I say, ignore it, change the subject and argue a straw man. I said what I said. If you agree, great. If you disagree, great. If you find it irrelevant, then why are you responding at all?

 

Your analogy was an attempt to clarify your interpretation of what I said. I said something. You gave an analogy that supposedly reflected the logic of what I had said. I then gave an analogy that better reflects the logic of what I had said. I didn't ignore your analogy. I pointed out that your analogy poorly reflected the logic of what I said by contrasting it with a better analogy (though I did make a mistake as clarified below). You missed the logic of my point which was that a problem in one place may be caused by factors in multiple other places. A country's problem may be caused by governments in multiple other places, not only its own, just as a problem with your car's brakes may have been caused as a result of a mixture of problems in factories all over the world.

 

On your point #2: I've pointed out in the thread that I don't even know what "structural violence" is defined as so I'm not sure how I could argue for or against it. I can't say a thing about whether "structural violence" causes famine or not until that term is defined which I've never seen done in a way that is defensible yet.

 

You're right though that I misspoke about the analogy. You were saying that brakes not working = government violence. I was speaking as if brakes not working = the country failing, with famine just being one aspect of that.

 

So to fix up my comment on the analogy, it is like you saying "the car crashed because the brakes aren't working" and me saying "the car actually may have crashed because of many other factors, and, even if the brakes are now not working, which may or may not be the case, we don't know if that was the original cause yet. It's possible that as the accident began to happen, the person slammed on the brakes and blew out a brake line during the crash, not as the cause of it, but an effect." and so on.

 

In some cases, a country's own government may not be the original cause of the famine. In other cases, the country's own government is problematic, but still not the original cause of the problem, just a part of the problem. In others, the country's own government may be almost completely to blame for the famine.

[FriendlyHacker]

The moment you start cooperating, the moment you start directing costumers to the store next door because it has better quality goods and prices, is the moment you are out of business and suffer the consequences of this zero sum game.

 

Incidentally, trying to help your costumers and improve their lives, would lead you to not make the sale, which I would argue is is not even remotely virtuous.

 

Apple could direct every iPad costumer to the Kindle Fire HDX, which has better hardware for half the price, but in practice Apple would quickly go out of business for doing so.

[STer]

The moment you start cooperating, the moment you start directing costumers to the store next door because it has better quality goods and prices, is the moment you are out of business and suffer the consequences of this zero sum game.

 

Incidentally, trying to help your costumers and improve their lives, would lead you to not make the sale, which I would argue is is not even remotely virtuous.

 

Apple could direct every iPad costumer to the Kindle Fire HDX, which has better hardware for half the price, but in practice Apple would quickly go out of business for doing so.

 

But the other side to this is that everyone who is in business is also a consumer themselves. So while you may lose on one side by someone else putting out better products at better prices, you also win by living in a system where better products at better prices are available to you.

[FriendlyHacker]

I would argue that on a Resource Based Economy there would be no financial barrier to getting new products out, the only barrier would be a technological one, and that's the only one you really need while developing new technology.

 

I don't want to start convincing people that they should give me money for building a 3d Graphene printer, even less because my ideas might not work at all. So the monetary system is restricting me from getting new products out there.

 

Note that if you incorporate failure as part of how things work in real life, you don't need to punish people for failing to make usable technology, in fact the whole society would be rewarded by me figuring out that something won't work, and that is a positive sum game.

[Mike Fleming]

I would argue that on a Resource Based Economy there would be no financial barrier to getting new products out, the only barrier would be a technological one, and that's the only one you really need while developing new technology.

 

I don't want to start convincing people that they should give me money for building a 3d Graphene printer, even less because my ideas might not work at all. So the monetary system is restricting me from getting new products out there.

 

Note that if you incorporate failure as part of how things work in real life, you don't need to punish people for failing to make usable technology, in fact the whole society would be rewarded by me figuring out that something won't work, and that is a positive sum game.

 

The financial system tells you whether something is viable or not.  Whether the resources are there to provide such a product and/or whether such a product is wanted by people.  It manages scarce resources.  

 

It's when central planning systems start messing with the monetary system that this information becomes distorted and doesn't match reality.  

 

Imo, money was the greatest invention ever in mankind because it allowed the division of labour to really get started and allow technological process.   Many of the greatest tragedies in mankind's history have been due to the constant meddling with money by "authorities", thereby disrupting the division of labour process leading to inefficiency in the system which has meant scarce resources do not get to where they are supposed to.  This has mostly been government reassigning resources to itself or it's friends with all the associated ill-effects throughout society or making people think that more resources are available at any given time than actually are, leading to booms and busts (when the market finds out that the resources don't actually exist or aren't truly wanted by people).

[FriendlyHacker]

The financial system is not telling me if resources are there or not, because it's a economic system based on fake paper, if this were the case there would be no such thing as planned obsolescence or perceived obsolescence, which is to say the market will waste resources in order to get more fake paper.

 

Apple is not worth the amount of resources it has, its value is as much imaginary as the paper we use, that is why you can have booms and busts, a bust means people realized they paid for something that never existed.

 

If the resources are there (carbon, aluminium, copper, water, eg: the most abundant things on the planet), why are the resources not reaching technology developers?

 

If there is food available, why there is hunger?

 

If there is abundant energy from solar, wind and geothermal, why are people still using fossil fuels?

 

As far as I can tell, the lobbyists paying off the government in order to keep making money off scarcity are going to keep doing the same thing with or without a government, and if you think rich people would only manage to screw up the monetary system with a government paid army, then you are not following the latest developments in warfare technology.

[Mike Fleming]

You keep misdiagnosing the problem.  I clearly said that the interference and distortion of the financial monetary system is causing misallocation of resources.

 

Until RBE'ers accept the fact that money was a completely necessary (and brilliant) invention, you won't understand it at all.  If money was so terrible, what else could we have used to get from the stone age to today?  Would cavemen have invented a super-computer?

 

Governments taking over and abusing the money system have led to a great many of the problems we see today.  It was what caused the depression which was what led to the worst war in man's history.   Who owns and controls the money system?  Who does the counterfeiting?   It's really not hard to figure out.

[FriendlyHacker]

It was a brilliant invention, so was the morse code.

 

Who owns the government? Do you know?

 

"Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws".

Who said that? Was it a politician, or a banker who profited from printing fake paper? Is this person directly related to what happened during the great depression?

[LifeIsBrief]

This is a really long thread for something with such a simple answer...  Violence created by structures, also known as governments and dogmatic religions.