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The_Walrus
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05 Apr 2013, 8:59 am

An army, perhaps. Clean streets and street lighting, perhaps. Policing, to a degree, though in all those cases it only works if you have working and middle class people living side by side or the middle classes have to walk through the working class areas. Unfortunately, if you have a disease, curing your richer neighbours won't cure you (you might get some limited benefits from herd immunity and hygiene). Likewise education, the "underclass" might learn a little from their educated neighbours but they won't be nearly as well off.



ruveyn
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05 Apr 2013, 9:13 am

The_Walrus wrote:
An army, perhaps. Clean streets and street lighting, perhaps. Policing, to a degree, though in all those cases it only works if you have working and middle class people living side by side or the middle classes have to walk through the working class areas. Unfortunately, if you have a disease, curing your richer neighbours won't cure you (you might get some limited benefits from herd immunity and hygiene). Likewise education, the "underclass" might learn a little from their educated neighbours but they won't be nearly as well off.


The poorest get the longest largest free ride. That fact that people can survive as beggars who do no produce anything useful is proof of that.

ruveyn



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05 Apr 2013, 9:18 am

ruveyn wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
But the free market can't provide those things at an affordable rate for the poorest. Just look at countries where these things aren't provided by the state, where generations of children aren't educated and live in squalor.



Don't be too sure. Suppose the wealthy and the middle class decided to finance an armed force (which they ARE doing. All the money for our military comes from somewhere). An army that can protect the property and lives of the wealthy and the middle class would in effect protect everyone. So the poor, as is often the case, get a free ride.

ruveyn


The free market would not, in fact protect the poorest. We've already tested this idea. In the 1800s, you would have to pay the firemen, or they'd let your house burn. That's why we had city wide fires in New York, Baltimore, and others. That's why we have public fire departments and police departments.

The whole point of the free market is that money talks. If you have to go to private school, welcome the days back when only the wealthy and the churchmen received an education. We already see how just getting cancer without insurance (which has jacked up premiums) can destroy a man's life, especially if he survives.

Economy and government are two different things. In order to govern, you need money, which makes the economy a means to an end. Kinda free market capitalism is the best means we know. Don't make the mistake of assuming that an economic framework can be used to govern. Especially one where anything goes. You approach anarchism, at that point.



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05 Apr 2013, 9:36 am

I suppose what it comes down to is, what makes a government legitimate? What gives a body of people the moral right to enforce a law they make in an area, especially when the people in said area did not vote for them?

What makes a government different from a Mafia, when both take money through coercion from the people in an area in exchange for protection (and, in the case of the latter, may be more efficient at doing it)? Could the people of a city get together and decide that they were going to subcontract policing to the Mob, or declare independence from the state that they previously a member of? If they can't declare independence, why not - what gives their previous state the moral right to use force to prevent them?

What if I declare my home or farm independent? If it is allowable for the state previously holding sovereignty to invade my new country and dissolve it's governing body, what is to prevent the UK from invading France and dissolving their governing body?

Saying that someone should just move to another country if they don't like the one they're living in is just silly, since there aren't any areas that you can't move to where some government won't try enforcing their will on you.

Tax is what you pay the government in exchange for protection of your life, liberty and property. Any use other than this is fundamentally immoral - if a man is hungry, why would it be okay for me to shoplift to feed him?

Anyway, I don't consider tax to be a necessary evil - evil, certainly, but not necessary. But proving that would require somewhere in the world where the government wouldn't interfere...



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05 Apr 2013, 9:52 am

Magneto wrote:
I suppose what it comes down to is, what makes a government legitimate? What gives a body of people the moral right to enforce a law they make in an area, especially when the people in said area did not vote for them?

.


Guns, tanks, planes, chains, whips, dungeons. And it isn't the right that makes government number one, it is the Might.

Die Macht ist das Recht. Don't forget it. It is a fact of life.

ruveyn



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05 Apr 2013, 11:10 am

Steinhauser wrote:
I like anything the free market can provide voluntarily, without the need for state violence.

So yes, I do like those things.




...you want a police force, owned by private companies?

...right... 8O

*dials 911* Help! Some one with a gun is chasing me!

"No problem sir if you can enter your credit card details someone will be right with you...the cost today is $10 000 but we have a special package today of three months police attention extra can I interest you in a platinum membership?"

*bang bang*

"arrgh!"

"sir?! sir?!"

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...........


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05 Apr 2013, 11:19 am

ruveyn wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
An army, perhaps. Clean streets and street lighting, perhaps. Policing, to a degree, though in all those cases it only works if you have working and middle class people living side by side or the middle classes have to walk through the working class areas. Unfortunately, if you have a disease, curing your richer neighbours won't cure you (you might get some limited benefits from herd immunity and hygiene). Likewise education, the "underclass" might learn a little from their educated neighbours but they won't be nearly as well off.


The poorest get the longest largest free ride. That fact that people can survive as beggars who do no produce anything useful is proof of that.

ruveyn


Rubbish. The poorest survive purely on the residual benevolence of other humans. Even under a laissez faire system I would expect to see a shred of goodness even from some people.


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05 Apr 2013, 11:39 am

1000Knives wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Taxes are the dues you pay for being a member of the State.


Or they'll kick your ass.


Not so sure about that, there are likely some legal consequences of evading taxes but not sure getting your ass kicked is one of them.


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05 Apr 2013, 11:47 am

ruveyn wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
An army, perhaps. Clean streets and street lighting, perhaps. Policing, to a degree, though in all those cases it only works if you have working and middle class people living side by side or the middle classes have to walk through the working class areas. Unfortunately, if you have a disease, curing your richer neighbours won't cure you (you might get some limited benefits from herd immunity and hygiene). Likewise education, the "underclass" might learn a little from their educated neighbours but they won't be nearly as well off.


The poorest get the longest largest free ride. That fact that people can survive as beggars who do no produce anything useful is proof of that.

ruveyn


How is living on the streets barely surviving a 'free ride'? Its hardly a free ride when one is so desperate they have to stand on a corner in very hot or cold weather hoping a few people might have the decency to spare a little change so maybe you can have food and a roof over your head for the night........then the next day having to do it all over again. Or some of them dig through the garbage trying to find scraps of food........free ride? I think NOT.

Also there are more barriers to homeless/very poor people getting out of the rut.......then opportunities or resources so where is this free ride they get?


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05 Apr 2013, 12:08 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
1000Knives wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Taxes are the dues you pay for being a member of the State.


Or they'll kick your ass.


Not so sure about that, there are likely some legal consequences of evading taxes but not sure getting your ass kicked is one of them.


I suppose if you ignore the legal consequences and then resist arrest you'll eventually get your ass kicked. But benefiting from public services while being a prick and refusing to pay taxes is also theft so you should expect something to be done about it.



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05 Apr 2013, 12:11 pm

marshall wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
1000Knives wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Taxes are the dues you pay for being a member of the State.


Or they'll kick your ass.


Not so sure about that, there are likely some legal consequences of evading taxes but not sure getting your ass kicked is one of them.


I suppose if you ignore the legal consequences and then resist arrest you'll eventually get your ass kicked. But benefiting from public services while being a prick and refusing to pay taxes is also theft so you should expect something to be done about it.


What if you didn't solicit the product or service. For example if the government delivers a meal to my house that I did not order, do I have to pay for it?

If a private party sends me something I did not order I am allow to keep it and not pay for it, although I might return it just to be a good fellow.

ruveyn



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05 Apr 2013, 1:02 pm

ruveyn wrote:
marshall wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
1000Knives wrote:
Fnord wrote:
Taxes are the dues you pay for being a member of the State.


Or they'll kick your ass.


Not so sure about that, there are likely some legal consequences of evading taxes but not sure getting your ass kicked is one of them.


I suppose if you ignore the legal consequences and then resist arrest you'll eventually get your ass kicked. But benefiting from public services while being a prick and refusing to pay taxes is also theft so you should expect something to be done about it.


What if you didn't solicit the product or service. For example if the government delivers a meal to my house that I did not order, do I have to pay for it?

If a private party sends me something I did not order I am allow to keep it and not pay for it, although I might return it just to be a good fellow.

ruveyn


There are things entailed in life and existing in a social society that can't be boiled down to simple tit-for-tat trade transactions. It's not possible to return the clean air you breathe or uncontaminated water you drink. The regulators that protect you have to be paid somehow. Trying to completely eradicate the commons is as unnatural as trying to completely eradicate self-interest driven markets.



Last edited by marshall on 05 Apr 2013, 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Steinhauser
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05 Apr 2013, 1:05 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
But the free market can't provide those things at an affordable rate for the poorest. Just look at countries where these things aren't provided by the state, where generations of children aren't educated and live in squalor.

Do you have any examples?

How many of those countries would you consider to have free markets?

The_Walrus wrote:
If a poor person is trapped in a fire, should the fire brigade just shrug their shoulders?

fueledbycoffee wrote:
The free market would not, in fact protect the poorest. We've already tested this idea. In the 1800s, you would have to pay the firemen, or they'd let your house burn. That's why we had city wide fires in New York, Baltimore, and others. That's why we have public fire departments and police departments.

A wikipedia search of The Great Fire of New York and The Great Baltimore Fire suggests the causes for those fires were entirely technical/logistic in nature. In New York, the river was frozen over, and water was freezing in the hoses as they were using them. In Baltimore, the hose couplings of nearby fire departments did not match Baltimore's hydrants.

If you were a home insurance agency, would you not make sure everyone in your jurisdiction of coverage was properly protected against fire? Even if they didn't buy insurance from you? Because if you didn't, those homes without protection pose an environmental hazard to the homes you are insuring.

If you were a home builder or seller, would you not make sure everyone who bought your houses had fire insurance as a standard clause? Because if you didn't, those homes without insurance would pose an environmental hazard to the surrounding homes, and drive up those homes' rates of insurance.

This brings me to a more important point...
kraichgauer wrote:
The one thing that motivates the market is essentially greed; and if business people can't get something for their efforts, they're not going to do it. That leaves plenty of people left on the street corner to die, minorities discriminated against, and even plenty of inventions and medical breakthroughs left undiscovered, because short sighted capitalists usually don't see the benefit for themselves in such things.

This is the biggest misconception about the free market. Yes, capitalism is driven entirely by financial incentives. But the key is competition.

If businesses leave people in the street to die, other businesses will gladly care for them in order to garner goodwill from consumers. Pretty much every fast food chain has its own charity for this reason.

If businesses discriminate against a certain race, other less petty businesses will outcompete them because they have a larger pool of employees to choose from, and will employ skilled people that the racist businesses would not.

If businesses don't invest in medical and technological research, others will, and will leave them in the dust. This is why pretty much every medical and technological innovation in the past 200 years has come from the free market.
thomas81 wrote:
...you want a police force, owned by private companies?

...right... Shocked

*dials 911* Help! Some one with a gun is chasing me!

"No problem sir if you can enter your credit card details someone will be right with you...the cost today is $10 000 but we have a special package today of three months police attention extra can I interest you in a platinum membership?"

*bang bang*

"arrgh!"

"sir?! sir?!"

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...........

Say, what kind of response times do you expect from state police?

And how long do you think a private security agency would last in the free market if it conducted business the way you describe?

In reality, the police force that depends on consumer profits will focus on providing excellent service. The police force that gets paid by state money has no motivation to do its job well, or at all. (In fact, if it does its job too well - under budget - its budget will be reduced. Talk about conflict of interest.)



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05 Apr 2013, 2:06 pm

Steinhauser wrote:
In other words, does the presence or absence of state endorsement change the moral nature of the act itself?

You are interested in a moral argument. Here is a moral angle not mentioned yet. What is the moral basis for your ownership of the stuff you claim as your property? Taxation can only be theft if you are the legitimate owner of what is being taken.

Steinhauser wrote:
If businesses don't invest in medical and technological research, others will, and will leave them in the dust. This is why pretty much every medical and technological innovation in the past 200 years has come from the free market.

The free market provides no incentive to develop treatments for poor people's diseases like malaria (because it affects mostly poor countries), even if those diseases kill lots of people. Instead, the market incentive is to develop treatments for male pattern baldness. The free market also encourages lobbying and advertising campaigns that classifies lots of conditions as diseases that need treatment. And the free market encourages imposing externalities on others whenever possible.

ruveyn wrote:
Suppose the wealthy and the middle class decided to finance an armed force (which they ARE doing. All the money for our military comes from somewhere). An army that can protect the property and lives of the wealthy and the middle class would in effect protect everyone. So the poor, as is often the case, get a free ride.

Only if the service can't be made selective. Even defence of the country can be a selective service, for example if the armed forces are sent to fight a war that serves primarily the economic interests of the ruling class, while the poor die serving in the army or get treated like dirt once they can't serve, because of age or injury. The rule of law can be selective. I can't come up with any government service that can't be made selective, so I don't see that much of a free ride.

Magneto wrote:
Tax is what you pay the government in exchange for protection of your life, liberty and property. Any use other than this is fundamentally immoral

What moral principle makes protection of your life, liberty and property moral, and other uses immoral?



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05 Apr 2013, 2:41 pm

Steinhauser wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
But the free market can't provide those things at an affordable rate for the poorest. Just look at countries where these things aren't provided by the state, where generations of children aren't educated and live in squalor.

Do you have any examples?

How many of those countries would you consider to have free markets?

The_Walrus wrote:
If a poor person is trapped in a fire, should the fire brigade just shrug their shoulders?

fueledbycoffee wrote:
The free market would not, in fact protect the poorest. We've already tested this idea. In the 1800s, you would have to pay the firemen, or they'd let your house burn. That's why we had city wide fires in New York, Baltimore, and others. That's why we have public fire departments and police departments.

A wikipedia search of The Great Fire of New York and The Great Baltimore Fire suggests the causes for those fires were entirely technical/logistic in nature. In New York, the river was frozen over, and water was freezing in the hoses as they were using them. In Baltimore, the hose couplings of nearby fire departments did not match Baltimore's hydrants.

If you were a home insurance agency, would you not make sure everyone in your jurisdiction of coverage was properly protected against fire? Even if they didn't buy insurance from you? Because if you didn't, those homes without protection pose an environmental hazard to the homes you are insuring.

If you were a home builder or seller, would you not make sure everyone who bought your houses had fire insurance as a standard clause? Because if you didn't, those homes without insurance would pose an environmental hazard to the surrounding homes, and drive up those homes' rates of insurance.

This brings me to a more important point...
kraichgauer wrote:
The one thing that motivates the market is essentially greed; and if business people can't get something for their efforts, they're not going to do it. That leaves plenty of people left on the street corner to die, minorities discriminated against, and even plenty of inventions and medical breakthroughs left undiscovered, because short sighted capitalists usually don't see the benefit for themselves in such things.

This is the biggest misconception about the free market. Yes, capitalism is driven entirely by financial incentives. But the key is competition.

If businesses leave people in the street to die, other businesses will gladly care for them in order to garner goodwill from consumers. Pretty much every fast food chain has its own charity for this reason.

If businesses discriminate against a certain race, other less petty businesses will outcompete them because they have a larger pool of employees to choose from, and will employ skilled people that the racist businesses would not.

If businesses don't invest in medical and technological research, others will, and will leave them in the dust. This is why pretty much every medical and technological innovation in the past 200 years has come from the free market.
thomas81 wrote:
...you want a police force, owned by private companies?

...right... Shocked

*dials 911* Help! Some one with a gun is chasing me!

"No problem sir if you can enter your credit card details someone will be right with you...the cost today is $10 000 but we have a special package today of three months police attention extra can I interest you in a platinum membership?"

*bang bang*

"arrgh!"

"sir?! sir?!"

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...........

Say, what kind of response times do you expect from state police?

And how long do you think a private security agency would last in the free market if it conducted business the way you describe?

In reality, the police force that depends on consumer profits will focus on providing excellent service. The police force that gets paid by state money has no motivation to do its job well, or at all. (In fact, if it does its job too well - under budget - its budget will be reduced. Talk about conflict of interest.)


Other businesses would step forward to care for those in need? Really? And when did that happen? Certainly not in the 19th century when big business had a free ride without any government competition or interference. I sincerely doubt they would care about those in need today, nor do I want to find out if they would.
The free market is NOT a deity that is all knowing and all good. In order to care for people in need, one needs to be free of the restraints of greed driven competition, so compassion can work.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



ruveyn
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05 Apr 2013, 2:45 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:

Other businesses would step forward to care for those in need? Really? And when did that happen? Certainly not in the 19th century when big business had a free ride without any government competition or interference. I sincerely doubt they would care about those in need today, nor do I want to find out if they would.
The free market is NOT a deity that is all knowing and all good. In order to care for people in need, one needs to be free of the restraints of greed driven competition, so compassion can work.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


The Salk and Sabin anti-polio vaccines were not produced by a government project.

ruveyn