Statism - the fundamental dysfunction of our world

[Malignacious]

This might open your eyes a bit.

 

For a more philosophical background watch this. 

 

And if you really wish to educate yourself and stop being a collectivist zombie:

 

The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer

 

Democracy: The God That Failed, Hans-Hermann Hoppe

 

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, Bryan Caplan

 

Great Myths of the Great Depression, Lawrence Reed

 

Most Dangerous Superstition, Larken Rose

 

The Market for Liberty, Morris and Linda Tannehill

 

Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market, Murray Rothbard

 

The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism, David Friedman

 

Universally Preferable Behaviour, Stefan_Molyneux

 

On Truth The Tyranny of Illusion, Stefan Molyneux

 

God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger

 

[Monte Carlo]

LoF, Oby and this guy... the same genius is behind all of them. Let's see if he can do steely-eyed libertarianism properly.

[Gorgon]

So we have to familiarize ourselves with what must be a several thousand page curriculum before we can partake.  I have to say I like the ambition. 

[Gorgon]

What's the alternative though, aren't people always going to seek power and to consolidate that power. If we did away with all nation states, how long before they would arise again ?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

LoF, Oby and this guy... the same genius is behind all of them. Let's see if he can do steely-eyed libertarianism properly.

Damn, I thought a militant religious dude would be next on the alt list.

[Malignacious]

What's the alternative though, aren't people always going to seek power and to consolidate that power. If we did away with all nation states, how long before they would arise again ?

 

Yes, people will always seek power. That's why we can't have a centralized power - statism, which killed 260 million people in the last century.

 

What do you mean about rising again?

There is only a single pillar upon which statism rests, the taxation theft. State offers poor services which could be better achieved in the free market, but without coercion. And what it doesn't spend on poor services it spends on its own proliferation, warmongering, irrational laws, and artificial barriers between people.

 

So, the situation is simple, if you sign a contract for a service you get the service. If you receive a service without having signed any contract for it, the enforcement of compensation for that service is an illegitimate act of aggression.

 

Also:

 

Prisons in a free society

Law Enforcement in a Free Society

Military Defense in a Free Society

Wouldn't warlords take over?

Edited October 2, 2014 by Malignacious

[JadedWolf]

In your grand vision of things, the state would be replaced with all powerful corporations.

 

No thanks.

[Hurlshort]

We need someone to fill the hardcore liberal void that Krezack did so well, too.

[Gorgon]

An anarchist utopia I would imagine to be a village size community of say a few thousand people were everyone could participate daily in direct democracy, as opposed to the representative kind, so what happens when the warlord from the neighbouring town invades. Doesn't history teach us that the creation of empires, and by extention nation states is unavoidable. 

[kirottu]

Did Krezack really leave, because Obsidian made a South Park game or do I have it wrong?

[Malignacious]

In your grand vision of things, the state would be replaced with all powerful corporations.

 

Corporation is a legal fiction created by the government to remove personal accountability.

It is impossible for such entity to exist in the free market because nobody would have the monopoly on force and control over the flow of money(the communist central banking that we have right now).

 

And with polycentric laws, such entity wouldn't even be conceivable.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Malignacious

[Meshugger]

Anarcho-capitalism: Anarcho-syndicalism's paranoid brother.

[Malignacious]

An anarchist utopia I would imagine to be a village size community of say a few thousand people were everyone could participate daily in direct democracy, as opposed to the representative kind, so what happens when the warlord from the neighbouring town invades. Doesn't history teach us that the creation of empires, and by extention nation states is unavoidable. 

 

All of that has been accounted for with the new transformational and decentralizing technologies of internet and crypto currency.

The first 10 minutes here alone debunks indepth your misguided, outdated notions.

[Gorgon]

If there has been one constant throughout human history it has been warfare and conquest. Somehow I doubt we are done with that. 

[Enoch]

Sometimes I really do envy folks like this.  That feeling of smug superiority for being one of the select few who can see what is so obviously wrong with the rest of the world is really great. 

 

Ah, to be 15 again.  It doesn't feel fair that some people appear able to prolong that feeling well into middle-age.

[Malignacious]

If there has been one constant throughout human history it has been warfare and conquest. Somehow I doubt we are done with that. 

 

Same can be said for slavery.

But in modernity, violence stems from the state.

 

For example, the First World War; never mind the root cause, but it was the introduction of the communist central banking and debt based currency which prolonged it to four years instead of one, which everyone had previously, at the time, expected to last.

This directly set the conditions for the Second World War and the US involvement in the first one directly caused Germans to fund Bolsheviks to overthrow the Russian czarism, introducing one of the great evils of our time - communism.

 

Furthermore, your implicit claim that humans are violent is empirically false.

There are certain thresholds in development of human civilization, statism is just one of those thresholds, following others before it, like tribalism and slavery.

Edited October 2, 2014 by Malignacious

[Malignacious]

Ah, to be 15 again.  It doesn't feel fair that some people appear able to prolong that feeling well into middle-age.

 

I await your specific objections instead of this lazy dismissal because you can't be bothered to rethink established conventions.

[Hurlshort]

At least he's been studying his vocab words, that's always refreshing.

[Gorgon]

That's nice and everything but we still have countries and we still have armies, people still band together based on culture and ethnicity, there is still a need for the security provided by the nation state. That security is provided by the excercise of force. What would the social contract be without a big stick to back it up. 

[HoonDing]

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann die Moral.

[Malignacious]

Also:

 

Prisons in a free society

Law Enforcement in a Free Society

Military Defense in a Free Society

Wouldn't warlords take over?

[Hurlshort]

 

 

In your grand vision of things, the state would be replaced with all powerful corporations.

Corporation is a legal fiction created by the government to remove personal accountability.

It is impossible for such entity to exist in the free market because nobody would have the monopoly on force and control over the flow of money(the communist central banking that we have right now).

 

And with polycentric laws, such entity wouldn't even be conceivable.

Have to agree. Corpo are the product of government regulations and mendling on free market.

 

 

Again, we've had periods in history where government was small and did not regulate business.  It was called the Gilded Age, and you ended up with corrupt railroad companies that controlled pricing and reaped huge profits.  Didn't any of you play Monopoly as children?

[Gorgon]

Idealists tend to forget the predatory nature of capitalism if there is no one forcing everyone to play by the same rules. 

[Monte Carlo]

I'm inherently suspicious of Utopianism of any stripe. I have libertarian sympathies, but libertarianism informs my politics rather than shapes them.

 

The nation state is the least-worst system at this time. Liberal democracy is the least-worst system at this time. Capitalism is the least-worst system at this time.

 

Libertarian values, in my opinion, are the best way to regulate these systems, while recognising these systems benefit the most without us falling into the thrall of Utopians of both Left and Right.

 

So, OP troll, screw your reading list. It's written by extremists, be they Ayn Rand or Karl Marx, both cheeks of the same arse. Hey, I'm a poet.

[Gorgon]

 

Idealists tend to forget the predatory nature of capitalism if there is no one forcing everyone to play by the same rules.

You are refering to corporations that ensure everybody plays by the rules they pay for to be established?

 

Industry oversigth and regulation isn't always corrupt. It just seems to happen with alarming regularity in the US in particular  and other places as well I'm sure.