OK, ‘fess up — some of you know that I thoroughly detest libertarianism, that reactionary political movement that seeks to elevate greed and selfishness as a ruling principle, and I suspect one of you got me a subscription to Reason magazine a few months ago, just to taunt me. If your goal was to persuade me to come over to the side of unbridled anti-social self-centeredness, you failed. The issue comes, I glance through it, find a few little bits and pieces I can agree with, but because they’re all imbedded in this thick tarry fecal sludge of libertarianism, I end up throwing the whole thing away in disgust.
The issue I got today was no exception. The cover story: Ron Paul. Bleh.
I disliked Ron Paul before I learned he was a quack, before I heard him deny evolution, before I learned he was an enabler for neo-nazis. I rejected him when I first read about his proposed policies, the ones he isn’t embarrassed to make public, and saw that he was promoting the same garbage my relatives in the John Birch Society were peddling when I was a young man: isolationism, anti-government, anti-immigrant, generalized hatred of the other and a blind refusal to recognize that culture matters.
The mostly laudatory article in Reason confirms my opinion.
…it’s all classic Ron Paul: Get rid of the income tax and replace it with nothing; find the money to support those dependent on Social Security and Medicare by shutting down the worldwide empire, while giving the young a path out of those programs; don’t pass a draft; have a foreign policy of friendship and trade, not wars and subsidies. He attacks the drug war … one of his biggest applause lines, to my astonishment, involves getting rid of the Federal Reserve.
I actually approve of some of that, like ending the drive to empire and the drug war. The John Birchers of my youth pushed the same agenda, but then you dig a little deeper, and you find the rotting core of their reasoning.
He wants tougher border enforcement, including a border wall; he wants to eliminate birthright citizenship; and he wants to end the public subsidies that might attract illegal immigrants.
Ron Paul isn’t just a small-government obsessive: he’s a no-government radical. And at the same time he wants every positive function of government to vanish, he wants what amounts to a police state in place to keep the rest of the world out, all out of fear of those strangers with different customs and ideas.
So, please, whoever you are: don’t renew my subscription to that awful magazine, and please, please don’t make me live in a Ron Paul America.
The problem with politics, as opposed to say science, is that definitions are often disputed. What is an atom, what is a liberal? Which one has a clear definition? :)
That said, what people call “Crony-capitalism,” or government subsidies to politically connected private corporations, is completely antithetical to what a capitalist would consider capitalism. To the left, its a condemnation of corporate power and to the right its a condemnation of government power.
The problem is that definitions tend to support the partisan divide because that’s what sells books in a non-academic political market. People agree on the problem, but semantics divides the debate into pre-set talking points.
What she “adds” to the political discourse would not be rewarded in a university setting, unless that university was particularly biased to begin with.
Obviously the theory is that economic interaction brought about by free trade and free markets pushes the discrimination you reference out of the mainstream because most people care more about their economic well being than whether the people they hire and/or do business with have some social stigma.
It seems that this is imparting a Marxian level of influence to economic factors. I’m rather iffy about that. I mean, Marx definitely had some points, but I think that overstating the affect of the economy on people’s behavior is one of the downfalls of a lot of economic and political theories.
It is exactly the same theory–that free trade helps prevent wars–applied within a society (inner vs. intra), i.e. free trade helps prevent or ameliorate culture wars as much as actual wars.
I’m a little iffy about this one as well. I’d certainly say that trade helps prevent war, to some extent, but in other cases it can cause problems. I mean, as you point out, there is the possibility that our trade with China might continue their ill treatment of their citizens and if that is the case then, long term, is that better or worse than war? Also, it seems that war is prevented just as much by the fact that China and the U.S. both have nukes and the U.S. regularly has ships around the area of Taiwan. China doesn’t want to risk nuclear war, and neither does the U.S., or most of us here don’t.
For this to transfer to the intra-national level there would have to be a similar dynamic between individuals as there is between states. I don’t see that as the case. The international arena is one where there are no real rules or laws except for the rule of might and general opinion. I certainly don’t want an internal version of that. Further, in the international case, there are no such things as real courts that have the power to punish like national courts do. There is no where to go to force adherence to contracts. I don’t think this is a good thing per se, but it does make it a different story, one in which long term social forces play a different, more subsidiary role.
I’m actually rather sorry that most of the best discussion is taking place this far down and this far removed from the original blog post–it’s undoubtedly not getting read by many others outside of us few remaining participants.
That’s pretty much the norm on threads like this. They get interesting as soon as they get abandoned by the majority of people. Mainly because the remaining people are the ones who are really interested in the conversation.
Thank you. This is exactly why Naomi Klein has no argument to stand on. Totalitarian Governments setting up politically connected oligarchies and oppressing dissenters has nothing to do with libertarianism or capitalism.
Actually, totalitarian governments are perfectly consistent with capitalism. Even ostensibly “communist” ones are actually properly called “state capitalist” governments.
“The libertarian haters should check out http://www.politicalcompass.org/index
Its quite possible to be a left libertarian,”
Which would be anarchism.
“Libertarianism isn’t anarchy,”
It is when it comes from the left. “Libertarian” emerged in Europe as a synonym for “anarchist”. It’s only in America where you have neo-feudalists misappropriating the term to refer to their own conception of laissez-faire.
Nullifidian: “That’s not an argument, that’s a baseless assertion.” The quote you quoted is an assertion, but it is hardly baseless since the very next paragraph in the articles stated quite clearly what the quote was based on.
Further, regardless of Friedman’s “strut[ing] his stuff”, why doesn’t it make sense to analyze what actually caused the Chilean economic problems? You cite a lot of depressing economic statistics and lay them at the feet of Milton Friedman, then turn around and say, “Furthermore, because of monopolies created by the junta, many small and medium-sized businesses went bust or were severely curtailed, adding to the general economic malaise of the working class.”
Wait, what? The juntas creating monopolies sounds a hell of a lot *more* like the article I posted–“Chile’s continued system of crony capitalism” than *anything* Friedman would have *ever* recommended. Does the *creation* of monopolies by the junta *really* sound like a government following free market economic principles? Keep in mind, this is what you said, not what I said or what those dastardly folks at Reason said.
It seems possible to me that unemployment was high in the 70’s because something as dramatic as something called the Shock Doctrine is going to have some pretty major impacts in the short term (it isn’t as if Friedman had a lot of test cases in which to refine his theory of a full national economic overhaul), and if you couple that with further poor economic policy decisions such as bad currency policy, corruption (i.e. cronyism), and setting up monopolies, then couple that with the unfortunate timing of the plunge in copper pricing . . . that sounds like a rough start to the 80’s with continued high unemployment, and you’re still laying this all at the feet of Friedman?
I don’t know that I could do that, given the various facts at our disposal now.
totalitarian governments are perfectly consistent with capitalism
And I’ll repeat my assertion: Anti-capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it capitalism. Capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it statism. We probably agree that authoritarianism SUCKS, but we keep voting for it because each side has paid shills to re-inforce the definitions that prevent objective study.
Even ostensibly “communist” ones are actually properly called “state capitalist” governments.
Are you kidding me? Communism = State-Capitalism? I guess to an anarchist, any private property is capitalist.
The problem with politics, as opposed to say science, is that definitions are often disputed. What is an atom, what is a liberal? Which one has a clear definition? :)
Yeah, this is definitely a problem. I often see people arguing at cross purposes or even outright agreeing, but not realizing what the terminology the other is using really means. Like up thread where someone was claiming there has never been a democracy. Which is either true or false depending on what you define democracy as. There is the further problem that an ideal theory, like capitalism or communism, never matches up with the reality of it. That is why one person can say that capitalisms doesn’t work and that capitalism is the cause of many ills in society and another can say that capitalism has never been really been tried. Same with communism. Except none of them are really going to be tried, because ideal theory doesn’t translate into the real world, it never has and it never will.
Then why don’t you go out and find some facts? It’s not as if they’re particularly difficult to find. I’d start with Amartya Sen’s analysis of Pinochet’s regime in Hunger and Public Action and Sznajder, M. (1996) “Dilemmas of economic and political modernisation in Chile: A jaguar that wants to be a puma”, Third World Quarterly, 17: 725-736.
The neoliberal policies implemented were straight out of the Chicago School playbook until 1982, when the worldwide economic slump required them to stray from the plantation, and by that time the decline in the fortunes of Chile’s poorest was already manifesting itself. Am I laying this at the feet of Friedman? You bet your arse I am, because even if it didn’t cause it (a rather untenable claim given the social indicators under Allende compared to the period of the pure Chicago School style of monetarist policy), adherence to the Chicago School policies did not provide sufficient flexibility for facing down any economic challenges that manifested themselves.
Anti-capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it capitalism. Capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it statism.
I disagree. Authoritarianism need not be capitalist, it just generally is. Anarchists recognize statism as separate from capitalism, though not the other way around. You can’t have capitalism, which requires a body to enforce contracts and private property without a state, it simply isn’t possible. you could have a state without a capitalist economy of any sort, though there is no example of such in the modern world. Capitalism means markets, free or otherwise, from the anarchist perspective.
“Authoritarianism need not be capitalist, it just generally is. ”
Empirically false. In modern times the Nazis, Communists, Mugabes of the world prove this all to clearly. In the past there was no capitalism and it was mostly authoritarianism.
Socialism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover as history proves over and over. It’s happening with Chavez as we speak.
Obviously for the purposes of participating in this discussion I don’t have time to drop everything to go buy/borrow and read Hunger and Public Action. Not having much access to first-hand research, I can only note from casual browsing that Chile’s continued free market reforms after the crash in the early 80s are credited with the result of a relatively prosperous country (relative to other South American nations).
The basic statistics in the CIA factbook don’t portray a particularly bleak picture of a relatively free-market country:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ci.html#Econ
Somebody copied off somebody here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Chile
It notes Chile has a relatively poor income distribution, although there seems to be some dispute over exactly how much of the population is below the poverty line.
As I said above, I’m not an expert on Chile and if you have read Hunger and Public Action, you are more researched in this area than I am. But given what I’ve read about the factors leading up to the problems in the early 80’s I don’t think it is unreasonable for people to have differing opinions as to the cause(s). It certainly isn’t a conclusive way of shutting down debate by saying Chile 75-82=free market economy=fail.
And I’ll repeat my assertion: Anti-capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it capitalism. Capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it statism. We probably agree that authoritarianism SUCKS, but we keep voting for it because each side has paid shills to re-inforce the definitions that prevent objective study.
You can repeat your assertion until you’re blue in the face, and it will still be nonsense founded on an inability to distinguish the words “consistent with” from “equivalent to”.
I look at authoritarianism and call it authoritarianism. It doesn’t have anything to do with the economic policies employed. There can be authoritarian socialists, authoritarian capitalists, and on and on. It just happens that Pinochet’s regime was an example of an authoritarian capitalist government, as opposed to the authoritarian populist one of, for example, Peru’s Manuel Odría.
“Are you kidding me? Communism = State-Capitalism? I guess to an anarchist, any private property is capitalist.”
No, but congratulations on maintaining a startling consistency in your careless readings. I didn’t say communism was state capitalism, but that communist governments, where enacted, have been more properly called state capitalist ones. Take, for example, the Soviet Union. After the October Revolution, it was actually a government of soviets, or workers’ councils, with a federated system of delegates for high-level decisions, for all of fifteen minutes. Then the Bolsheviks established a strict state bureaucracy, and killed the workers by the thousands when they dared protest their new powerless in this ‘worker’s paradise’ (see Kronstadt 1921 by Paul Avrich for a look at one specific instance).
So at this point, the Soviet Union stopped being all about its soviets, and yet it wasn’t individually capitalistic either. It was a hybrid of state power and capitalism that is properly called state capitalism. The same thing is going on in contemporary China.
By the way, I’d suggest you learn something of anarchism, since there are many anarchists who not only countenance but encourage private property, e.g. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (yes, the same Proudhon who said “property is theft” and no, there is no intrinsic contradiction between that statement in context and his support of private property). No anarchists I know use that as their basis for calling something “capitalist”.
It certainly isn’t a conclusive way of shutting down debate by saying Chile 75-82=free market economy=fail.
Which is not the argument I’m making by a long shot. All I am saying is that the economic indicators for the poor and working class went down significantly after Pinochet’s neoliberal policies were enacted. Whether that is a “fail” depends on many imponderables which I could not begin to try to convince you of, including, significantly, whether one gives a damn about the poor and working class.
Furthermore, the stats you cited are not relevant, since they do not come from the Pinochet era. This is not just academic, since it has been demonstrated (in Manuel Castells’ Globalización, Desarrollo y Democracia) that the reforms undertaken during the period of post-Pinochet democratization caused economic indicators to rise at every level, and the economy to become more redistributive from where it was under Pinochet.
“I’m actually rather sorry that most of the best discussion is taking place this far down and this far removed from the original blog post–it’s undoubtedly not getting read by many others outside of us few remaining participants.”
Which is why I tend not to get too invested in these arguments. I know a hell of a lot more than most of the posters on these areas but it really would take too much effort to teach them. Especially when their religious socialists.
The whole issue of capitalism naturally working against both racial discrimination and slavery is an interesting one. Thomas Sowell a black economist analyzed this quite well in several of his books.
Some interesting and counterintuitive facts are that it was bus companies and theater owners who were against Jim Crow, and the state that was for it. Another interesting fact is that trade unions were a standard instrument of discrimination and impediment to reform. This was true outside the US also. In South Africa for instance trade unions used minimum wage laws to prevent blacks from being hired in the mines.
None of these facts are mysterious with proper economic understanding. Turns out that racists have interests as individuals and as members of the group. However, one is much stronger than the other. It’s almost Dawkinian the way Sowell shows that in this case group selection is the weaker factor under capitalism. Whereas, he also shows that cost shifting via the State and anti-capitalist laws allows group interests to win out.
I’m not going to dumb it down or explain further. Pick up a book.
BTW, he also shows that capitalism works against slavery also, and that only via cost shifting via the State or some state like apparatus can slavery pay off. In the long run manumission makes sense to the slaver in a capitalist society where the state won’t pick up his enforcement bills, whereas, with State supported slavery the slaver can shift costs to others in society.
Isn’t it selfish how P Z Myers spends his time playing with squids instead of doing the hard work of actually reading about the economics of race in order to understand the true problem and get at actual solutions. Shame on all of you for shifting the costs to libertarians why greedily basking in the light of “holier than thou” false and sanctimonious concern for others. If you were truly concerned you’d get off your ass learn something.
Now I’m going to go do something I enjoy like plan my garden instead of sacrificing my day to make the world a better place, and yes I give blood, voluteer at the boys and girls club, give to charity and the rest.
Ignorant bigots.
Nullifidian:
Now, what really happened in Chile is that wages fell 8% between 1970 and 1989.
Only goes to show how little you know what you’re talking about. Even if wages fall by 99% it’s not necessary a bad thing. Thanks to government granted privileges, labor unions may negotiate wages that are 99% above their market equilibrium which leads to misallocation of resources, unemployment and so on. Also, nominal wage increases tell nothing about purchasing power. The purchasing power of an average Chilean has increased so that it’s now almost on par with Western Europe. This is thanks to economic reforms initiated under Pinochet, although his successors carried out further important reforms.
By 1989 the social safety net was hacked to pieces with family allowances declining 28% from 1970, and 20% declines, on average, in housing, education, and health budgets.
Without Pinochet’s glorious coup there would have been no welfare services of any kind left. Allende was wrecking an economy that was already wrecked.
which hit 26% during the slump of 1982-1985 and peaked at 30%.
So? The country was going through a reform and necessary structural changes were needed. The same thing happened in Eastern Europe. A switch from a centrally planned economy to a market economy is bound to cause short-term problems. Look at the situation now. As said, Chile is the most prosperous South-American country with extensive welfare programs.
The income distribution became more regressive, with the wealthiest 5% receiving 25% of the total national income in 1972 compared to 50% a mere 3 years later.
Yes, if the rich are not allowed to get richer no one is going to get richer. After all – the peasants in Europe weren’t exactly enjoying a high standard of living until the bourgeoise was allowed to pursue their selfish interests.
Malnutrition affected one child out of two, and three people out of five, and infant mortality rates skyrocketed.
This may have been the case for a few years after the coup. As for today, Chile has the lowest infant mortality rate of all South-American countries.
Furthermore, because of monopolies created by the junta, many small and medium-sized businesses went bust or were severely curtailed, adding to the general economic malaise of the working class.
This is true but state monopolies were mostly sold during and after Pinochet.
So hooray for Uncle Milty! He certainly showed the way to run an economy…into the ground.
There isn’t a single sane economist on the planet who’d agree with the idiotism you’re spewing out.
You know, it’s fine if people don’t agree with Ron Paul’s platform, and if you believe we should disregard parts of the Constitution that clash with personal political agendas. But I’m really getting tired of comments like, “…he wants every positive function of government to vanish, he wants what amounts to a police state in place to keep the rest of the world out, all out of fear of those strangers with different customs and ideas.” It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Paul’s position, and an attempt to marginalize him with inaccurate, emotionally charged rhetoric.
The main positive function of government is to protect our rights and liberties. That was its purpose when our Constitution was created. The other claims in this quote are completely unfounded. Ron Paul supports a “police state”? How is that possible, given Paul’s “no government” stance? Paul also simply wants to enforce our nation’s current immigration laws. Is that so horrible? Personally, I want the laws to become more liberal, as I think we should be letting more people in who simply want to work towards a better life for them and their families. Paul has also since decided that the concept of a border wall is unrealistic and a bad idea.
I understand that a lot of liberal-minded individuals see Paul’s ideology as a threat, but I believe that this arises from a failure to understand where he’s coming from. I’ve yet to understand why so many liberal and so-called conservative individuals feel as though it’s not only palatable to disregard the Constitution, but necessary as well. While it’s true that “selfish individualism” is a trademark of the old libertarian guard (or at least a stereotype), modern libertarianism is born largely out of a belief that true freedom works, is mandated by our Constitution, and that mainstream political parties are recklessly grabbing power in order to forward their particular visions of “good”, while setting the stage for a horrible abuse of said power that will dwarf anything that Nixon or Bush have been accused of doing. When you give a government the power to do good, you give them the power to do evil.
Kevin Carson:
I don’t see Pinochet’s policies as very “libertarian.”
Certainly not all of them were. However, he did reverse the direction of the economy from a centrally planned to a market economy. Also, many of the important reforms were carried out by his successors.
They included, among other things, reversing land reforms and returning land–that rightfully belonged to the peasants–to latifundistas based on quasi-feudal titles.
Land reforms that involve “returning” land to peasants may not be a good thing as Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has demonstrated. They may be heavily unskilled which means less food production. Also, as for who really owned these lands in the first place, it’s always hard to determine.
When you privatise anything, it should be done so that whatever is being privatised eventually ends up in the hands of those who’re able to make the most out of it. In the case of land reform this means that the peasants should have the right to sell their property to private enterprises, including Western multinationals.
2) use the World Bank debt to enslave the country like the company stores enslaved miners, and blackmail it into a “atructural adjustment program” by which it auctions off the roads and utilities to crony capitalists
Yes, this is of course the wrong way. The WB has got nothing to do with libertarianism. It’s a government owned institution that provides loans to the kind of countries that would never be supported by private banks.
Finally, there’s nothing very “libertarian” about disappearing and torturing labor organizers, and leaving them in ditches with their faces hacked off.
Who said there was?
Not that I have much sympathy for these activists who think it’s okay for the government to seize people’s property.
On a separate topic, you ought to be careful putting forth the Pacific Rim countries as libertarian utopias.
There isn’t a single fully libertarian society on Earth. However, we can distinguish relatively libertarian economies from oppressed economies. These are certainly not some libertarian utopias but still fine examples of libertarianism working in practice.
Without Pinochet’s glorious coup there would have been no welfare services of any kind left. Allende was wrecking an economy that was already wrecked.
Pinochet’s “glorious coup” which killed 3,000 people and imprisoned an order of magnitude more. What a loathsome fuckwit you are for characterizing anything which led to such terror and sorrow as “glorious”. I’m certainly glad that this is in record, because it stands as a giant neon sign proclaiming “This is how contemptible you’d have to be to believe what I do.”
Euphemism of “glorious coup” aside, are you saying it necessarily follows that if one does, somehow, believe that Chile’s free market reforms did eventually benefit the country that they must also by necessity fully support and agree with Pinochet’s tactics for repressing opposition?
Surely not, nor do I suspect that was Mikko’s intent. Given that Mikko has come off otherwise as a rather even-keeled type (despite your political/economic differences of opinion), does it really make sense to pick up your interpretation and run with it rather than clarifying whether it was perhaps intended as some form of sarcasm, or are you just trying to be antagonistic?
Euphemism of “glorious coup” aside, are you saying it necessarily follows that if one does, somehow, believe that Chile’s free market reforms did eventually benefit the country that they must also by necessity fully support and agree with Pinochet’s tactics for repressing opposition?
In other words, let’s leave out the relevant characterization which forms the basis for me saying what I did. Nothing in Chile’s free market reforms required a coup, and actually worked better without one, so I can only conclude that anyone who refers to a “glorious coup” in Chile is referring to the actual mechanics of the coup: murdering Allende, disappearing/murdering dissidents, imprisoning people in ad hoc concentration camps, and so on.
Given that Mikko has come off otherwise as a rather even-keeled type
As here in message #232, and numerous others: “Either you’re a complete jackass or just dishonest.”
does it really make sense to pick up your interpretation and run with it rather than clarifying whether it was perhaps intended as some form of sarcasm, or are you just trying to be antagonistic?
Clarifying things with Mikko is to mud-wrestle with a pig, and I don’t have the patience for it. Why should I treat him as anything other than the rude, contemptible, and arrogant slime he’s already revealed himself to be in his prior responses? I do believe that he was entirely serious, because his arrogance is so broad that it becomes sociopathic–as long as his ideals are being flattered, and even if the evidence doesn’t bear him out (witness his response to me), then it doesn’t matter what is going on to the poor and working-class, whom he probably regards as slightly subhuman anyway.
Who said there was?
Not that I have much sympathy for these activists who think it’s okay for the government to seize people’s property.
It is saying things like this that causes people to think so lowly of libertarians. Comparing torture and murder with redistribution is absurd and offensive. It seems pretty obvious that you think unions are somehow inherently bad because they allow labor some small amount of power in the market, which “distorts” wages.
Can we just move on from Ron Paul? He’s a douche. Ross Perot had more supporters.
Ron Paul is not popular.
As for true natural monopolies (non-excludable public goods with a free rider problem), I think
Whatever you think of them, they occur. Thus Jim’s statement was false, and his bleating protests are intellectually dishonest. But then he’s a libertarian, and you can’t be a libertarian without being intellectually dishonest.
Exactly. He polls in the single digits. Just because his few supporters are insanely vocal is no reason to give him more credence than candidates with a much larger base of support and a much greater chance of running the country. It would make far more sense to put this kind of analysis into the positions of Guiliani, or Romney, or Clinton, or Obama, rather than spend this kind of effort on a marginal kook with no chance of winning the nomination, much less the presidency.
Unfortunately, most of the mainstream candidates don’t have solid policy proposals to discuss. We could talk about Hillary’s healthcare proposal, but that’s just basically $120 billion a year to the insurance companies annually. She said oil prices will drop “just because she’s elected” and the oil-producing countries will slash prices to prevent her from enacting Manhattan-project levels of alternative energy research.
Of course, we could have Obama, backed by Clinton-era staffers and similar corporate sponsors. Edwards? There might be “two Americas” but the guy living in a 30,000 sqft house and riding around in a private train isn’t from the same America as me. His health-care proposal is special: treatment would be mandatory.
Name me one national politician polling more than 1% who isn’t wealthy.
Its his mandatory health-care treatments that creep me out; I find his wealth and hypocritical class-warfare rhetoric simply amusing (well, dangerous to the extent people believe him).
But go ahead and remind everyone how rich the ‘front-runner’ lawyers are… My original point was that Washington D.C. isn’t suited to serve local interests like schools and medicine and shouldn’t be trusted with such public wealth and power as we have given up in the last 20-30 years.
Despite Paul’s (significant) shortcomings, he nicely sums up why I’ll still vote for him:
“I don’t want to run your life. We all have different values. I wouldn’t know how to do it, I don’t have the authority under the Constitution, and I don’t have the moral right … I don’t want to run the economy. People run the economy in a free society … I don’t want to run the world … We don’t need to be imposing ourselves around the world.”
From Brian Doherty’s Reason article: http://www.reason.com/news/show/123905.html
No, he wants the state government to run your life, outlaw abortion, etc.
So, apparently once you’ve earned a certain amount of money, you are no longer allowed to sympathize with the plight of the lower class. Unless you give up all of said money and live an ascetic life and run an ascetic political campaign. Sounds unworkable to me.
It reminds me of all those ridiculous attempts to smear Al Gore because he lives in a big (carbon neutral) house or because he ate some Chilean Sea Bass at a party once. We’re not into cults of personality, and we can distinguish between a person’s personal life and their public policy.
Nullifidian:
What a loathsome fuckwit you are for characterizing anything which led to such terror and sorrow as “glorious”.
If you can’t recognize that Pinochet’s coup saved Chile from an economic disaster (which would have made that 3000 look pretty modest) despite the fact that he killed some people (3000 is pretty lame compared to his Stalinist counterparts in Cambodia, China, the USSR and so on) then I really cannot help you.
Nothing in Chile’s free market reforms required a coup
Except removing Salvador Allende, a criminal, from power.
I’m going to use all of Mikko’s justifications if I ever need to kill someone.
“You see Your Honour, if I didn’t kill Mrs. Duncan and appropriate her uncashed Social Assistance cheques, all of Western Civilisation would have been plunged into chaos leading to the inevitable death of millions. Besides, one old broad with a walker is a spit in the bucket compared to the fifty-seven people I shot in that bank heist–oops, can we strike that last comment?”
Glorious indeed.
At the appeal:
“Besides, Your Honour, I killed her after watching her continue to cross the street after the light changed.
Well, don’t you see? She was A CRIMINAL!”
Thanks for the laugh, Mikko.
Uh, you were kidding, weren’t you?
Mikko wasn’t telling a joke, he is one.
Nullifidian:
“Libertarian” emerged in Europe as a synonym for “anarchist”. It’s only in America where you have neo-feudalists misappropriating the term to refer to their own conception of laissez-faire.
Anarchism cannot exist without private property. In fact, private property is the foundation of anarchism. Otherwise you’ll have a bunch of greedy communists seizing your property whenever they feel you’re not working for the “common good”. Left libertarianism is a joke.
Brownian, OM:
“You see Your Honour, if I didn’t kill Mrs. Duncan and appropriate her uncashed Social Assistance cheques”
If you cannot see the difference between Mrs. Duncan cashing a welfare check and a man who’s inflating the money supply, seizing property, being friends with militant communists, causing shortages of food etc. then I really can’t help you.
And waiting for the next election was not an option?
I’d also like some evidence for the deliberate food shortages. Further, I’d like to see that the inflation was worse than the deflation Milton Friedman later wrought.
Was that a point? Or just an assertion (as another libertarian here put it, “Libertarians believe”)?
Comment 442:
I wanted to explain it to him, because I thought he had clearly not understood it.
If you have a sufficiently purist view of what is and is not capitalism, sure… by analogy, that would mean there has never been a communist country either…
Communism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover. Socialism by definition wants any takeover to happen by election, not by revolution; that makes it harder. Chávez tried anyway, and, lo & behold, he (narrowly) lost. He’s foaming at the mouth, but he can’t do anything against that, and he won’t do anything against that. That would be majorly bad PR, and he knows that if his PR gets too bad, he’s in serious trouble.
A few decades ago, the Soviet Union said it wasn’t communist, it was socialist. This was at once a reference to strict Marxist theory (where socialism and communism are stages in the “inevitable” development of a society, and the USSR had only reached the stage of socialism) and a propaganda coup (see above for the difference between the ideologies of communism and socialism). Various US conservatives took this propaganda coup and ran with it, because it allowed them to equate socialists with communists (and everyone to their left with socialists). This seems to be the definition you are using.
And waiting for the next election was not an option?
I’d also like some evidence for the deliberate food shortages. Further, I’d like to see that the inflation was worse than the deflation Milton Friedman later wrought.
Was that a point? Or just an assertion (as another libertarian here put it, “Libertarians believe”)?
Comment 442:
I wanted to explain it to him, because I thought he had clearly not understood it.
If you have a sufficiently purist view of what is and is not capitalism, sure… by analogy, that would mean there has never been a communist country either…
Communism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover. Socialism by definition wants any takeover to happen by election, not by revolution; that makes it harder. Chávez tried anyway, and, lo & behold, he (narrowly) lost. He’s foaming at the mouth, but he can’t do anything against that, and he won’t do anything against that. That would be majorly bad PR, and he knows that if his PR gets too bad, he’s in serious trouble.
A few decades ago, the Soviet Union said it wasn’t communist, it was socialist. This was at once a reference to strict Marxist theory (where socialism and communism are stages in the “inevitable” development of a society, and the USSR had only reached the stage of socialism) and a propaganda coup (see above for the difference between the ideologies of communism and socialism). Various US conservatives took this propaganda coup and ran with it, because it allowed them to equate socialists with communists (and everyone to their left with socialists). This seems to be the definition you are using.
Anarchism cannot exist without private property. In fact, private property is the foundation of anarchism.
I’m rather amazed at your ability to become more and more wrong the more you say. Anarchism certainly can exist without private property. In fact, without a government, there is no such thing as private property. The first role of the government is to enforce property rights. The foundation of Anarchism is the idea that we need not have a government to run society, not private property.
For a truly excellent and recent discussion on Anarchy, I recommend Cato Unbound’s August discussion optic:
“August 2007: Who Needs Government? Pirates, Collapsed States, and the Possibility of Anarchy”
http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/august-2007/
Here is a teaser that mentions private property within the context of anarchy:
“On the other hand, most consequentialist defenses of anarchy are purely speculative. In forging responses to how a stateless society could cope with every conceivable contingency it might confront, anarchists often offer imaginative conjecture, in some cases bordering on science fiction.
Ironically, the case for anarchy derives its strength from empirical evidence, not theory.
Most of the world, for most of its history, has existed without effective governments. As noted economic historian Joel Mokyr points out, “In England,” for example, “there was not even a professional police force to protect private property” until the 19th century.”
I didn’t get into the December topic, but Cato Unbuond often has really great topics that are presented in a format that allows for some nice depth of argument. The anarchy discussion was really fascinating.
Which, of course, is completely different from saying “There was no protection for private property”, unless you believe that property theft wasn’t punished by state officials until the 19th century.
As a skeptic and a science blog, i was happy to stumble across your blog. I checked out a post or two and added it to my RSS feed before heading off for the holiddays.
When i got back, one of the first posts i noticed was an anti ron paul diatribe. Now, on political tests i score between liberal and libertarian, and i probably won’t vote for ron paul in any case, i think he’s too religious, for one things, but i also noticed you posted and anti-hillary clinton letter you received, and, frankly, the main difference between his political statement and yours was that his was longer and contained some neat colors.
Just making some random statements about “greed” and “self-centeredness” and describing someone else’s position as “fecal” is as open-minded and fact-based as a creationist stumbling across your blog and using the same sort of language and rhetoric; in other words, you don’t seem appreciably different than the people you’re opposing, in the language, arguments, and personal attacks you’re making.
David Marjanović:
And waiting for the next election was not an option?
Allende was relatively popular even when the country was going downhill. Nazis were given power by the people. Chavez was re-elected…
I simply don’t see how being democratic provides an excuse for nationalizations etc. Democracy is important only for as long as it maintains the freedoms we now have after centuries of nothing but crap. How much would you value a democratic decision that calls for your imprisonment for voicing your opinion?
I’d also like some evidence for the deliberate food shortages.
I didn’t say deliberate. Many socialists don’t understand things like cause & effect. But being an idiot is no excuse for ruining a country.
Further, I’d like to see that the inflation was worse than the deflation Milton Friedman later wrought.
Deflation was needed. Inflation was not. Allende printed money to pay for all those wage increases and social programs.
coathangrrr:
Anarchism certainly can exist without private property. In fact, without a government, there is no such thing as private property. The first role of the government is to enforce property rights.
You cannot be against private property without having a hierarchical government of some kind.
For example, in a stateless system companies may be formed spontaneously by free individuals, and you cannot stop that without having a government that uses (or threatens to use) force on individuals. From what I know, the so called “anarchists” don’t allow using force for any other purposes than self defense.
People will not give up their property for the common good. In the kind of a perverted anarchy you’re advocating you’d have gangs of looters socializing other people’s property by using force. This isn’t the kind of liberation from hierarchies anarchists are advocating. You’d have exactly the kind of a system that now exists in countries like North Korea where others tell you what you’re supposed to do with your life.
From what I know, some anarchists actually support things like freedom of religion. But such a thing cannot exist if people are not allowed to own bibles, churches etc. Freedom of speech cannot exist if looters are allowed to socialize news stations for the common good.
Private property can exist without a government. You’d have private security services, for example, protecting your property from aggressors.
You people are brainwashed as well as ill-informed. Can I get a BAH…BAH. You’re all a bunch of Communist sheep. I should know, I used to be a Liberal.
Spurge said:
If you can find others hurt by this big company, you just might be able to win through class action lawsuit. There’s your army to retaliate against the company’s army.
Mikko Sandt, that was a good post. Also, it is a whole lot easier to deter aggressors against your property if you have a personal WMD like microbial weapons and nanite-weapons. Given technological trends in this Century, these weapons will probably be available for home manufacture by the mid to late Twenty-First Century. Hell, even a home-made guided anti-tank/anti-aircraft missile can be helpful in enforcing individual sovereignty. There will never be a World Government.
Eat that Statists!
coathangrrr said:
Then don’t live in that state. After all, I have decided not to live all my life in the People’s Nanny-State of Kalifornia.
Huh, no replies yet eh? Apparently you statists want to ignore the fact that this Century doesn’t favor you. The Nanny-State isn’t worth FUCKING SHIT when its enforcers are easy to kill. That’s right, EASY TO KILL!
Better not pass any more god-damned regulations.
Ken Cope:
Oh really, I would prefer their “cults” than your cult of “smiley-face” fascist statism. Besides, the technological trends favor mine over yours in the mid to late Twenty-First Century. Your enforcers are DEAD.
OOops! I forgot to answer PZ’s question!
Q: Why is Ron Paul so popular?
A: Because a lot of people agree with his ideas, that, and “cult of personality”.
Anarchism cannot exist without private property. In fact, private property is the foundation of anarchism. Otherwise you’ll have a bunch of greedy communists seizing your property whenever they feel you’re not working for the “common good”. Left libertarianism is a joke.
No, actually you are a joke; or rather a long-standing work of performance art based around the concept of self-referential irony.
Namely telling me, an anarchist, what is the foundation of anarchism, on the principle that “greedy communists” can seize the fruit of one’s efforts whenever they unilaterally determine one is doing it wrong, all the while supporting a coup which basically turned the property of the people of Chile–the country itself–into the private fiefdom of Pinochet, his high-ranking supporters, and American corporations.
You people are brainwashed as well as ill-informed. Can I get a BAH…BAH. You’re all a bunch of Communist sheep. I should know, I used to be a Liberal.
So you used to be a liberal, but you were unaware that liberals hate and despise all forms of leftism? And you were further unaware that Communists reciprocated by calling reformism “socialism in words and fascism in deeds” and officially declared social democracy “social fascism”?
That is, incidentally, the theme of the latest spit-up from Jonah Goldberg, whose adherence to the Stalinist party line from the sinecure of one of the nation’s most conservative and anti-communist magazines is truly vintage irony.