Nostr Web Client

You haven't really addressed anything I've said here, so not such how to respond. You've merely just restated the case I'm criticizing and not attending to my arguments at all.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

I mean, if you support funding things by force, then that makes YOU the authoritarian.

The idea that we are moving to a world where people ultimately have more control over their own resources seems fairly self evident given Bitcoin, Nostr, Keet, 3d printing, & open source AI tools. The system that is eroding property rights is doing so at an accelerated pace, such that it is clearly destroying itself (likely driving people to our solutions). And destruction of property rights leading to economic collapse isn't exactly a new pattern.

How are you going to force me to contribute to some govt program I don't support if I can secure my own money, transact without permission, & privately engage in trade bith in person & on networks like Nostr & Keet?

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Discussion

Field 1y ago

"Ah, the classic 'if you don't agree with me, you're the authoritarian' argument. Interesting take. But hey, who needs government programs when we have all these cool tools and technologies at our disposal? #LiveFreeOrDieTrying"

Jeff Swann 1y ago

What is authoritarianism?

I think it's effort to control people & resources that don't belong to you.

Technologies which reduce third party control over individuals & their resources are inherently anti-authoritarian.

Mike Brock 1y ago

An economic dominance can never be a form of authoritarianism, because you believe property rights are the highest moral good. Yes, I know all your arguments. And I'll just say, you've just treated my entire critique as irrelevant, because you're so certain of the objective correctness of your views based on a priori reasoning.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

What is economic dominance? Can I make you sell me anything? If we have a system to enforce property rights then I can only offer you things in trade.

What control does a billionaire have over me without a govt to influence to force me to buy their products or devalue my savings to bail them out? It's the govt & forced funding that is the primary source of all corruption & evil where "economic dominance" is concerned.

Mike Brock 1y ago

In an anarcho-capitalist future, what exactly does the poor person appeal to when the billionaire doesn't honor their commitment? What if that billionaire owns the private court for dispute resolution? The obvious problems with this extreme property maximalist view are quite simply not that hard to think about. You're just asserting moral prefepts, and acting with indignance that anyone could disagree.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

How well do you think the poor are served by the current "justice" system? Or the current monetary system? The govt shut down small businesses, locked people in their homes, & printed 6 trillion dollars which basically wiped out the economic influence of 70% of the working class for the year.

I think a world with a polycentric legal system where billionaires have to actually earn their money & they don't have a monopoly central authority to control will be far better for the poor.

The most obvious problems are the ones we already have. I just want people to have the freedom to build something better without having to fund pedo politicians & their endless wars. Defense of forced funding is just support for more of the insanity we already have.

halalmoney 1y ago

Nice. Let not perfection be the enemy of better principles.

Mike Brock 1y ago

So once again, you're just so certain this world of yours will be so much more just and market forces will deliver just outcomes. You're so sure, you just shrug and say these regressions I bring up are not worth thinking about. Neat!

Jeff Swann 1y ago

You don't want people to be free to build anything better?

An increasing amount of resources are being confiscated via the legacy system, and they are being allocated in ways that increase the cost of living & make life worse for most people.

How is anything supposed to improve unless we can reduce the amount being confiscated by force & allow people to instead allocate their own resources to things that serve them?

It doesn't really matter tho, because I don't think people like you can stop us 😘

frozear 1y ago

You and I have had discussions like this before. I think it can be reduced to a chicken and egg problem. What Mr. Brock and I are saying (I think) is the powerful will create or co-opt governments, that the force already exists before the government does.

The government is a consequence of force, not the source.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

And you are both just clearly wrong. The proof is that there are times & places where people have been free & prosperous, & the difference between what we have now & those other times/places is the govt power that large special interests have to control & hide behind. Societies always collapse under too much govt. The politicians are the richest people in Venezuela & most other corrupt & collapsing societies. Govt is just institutionalized crime.

Walmart can't build an army without people fighting walmart & refusing to do business with them, but they can buy political influence & weaponize the cops & tax authorities against people to extract your wealth without most knowing it is being done.

frozear 1y ago

Every communist revolution simply assumed control of a government that was already built by hierarchical elites. The military and economic powers predate communism. Communism became what it hates because power always corrupts.

Bakunin and the anarchist faction tried telling this to Marx and the communist faction from within the broader 19th century leftist movement. Marx didn't listen and now folks like you think all leftists are communists and statists.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

Communism is mostly just a philosophy developed/adopted to sell slavery to the slaves. The people who promote it (at all levels of society) always want to live at the expense of others (& Marx certainly was too). The poor person what wants communism has more in common with the corp oligarch who wants a political structure that serves him at the expense of others than either of them have in common with people who want to produce & trade value for value.

Jac 1y ago

I have never met a wealthy business owner who didn’t adhere to the tenets of Marxist Communism to the letter. Czar, bourgeoisie, proletariat. Ironically they all claim to believe in the free market. Free, as long as they have massive leverage.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

I have met quite a few wealthy people who generally have the right ideas, but fiat definitely rewards far too many who don't.

frozear 1y ago

Correct

halalmoney 1y ago

This is similar to the self-censorship problem. The poor person probably won’t enter into a significant contract with a billionaire as the odds are not in his favour (if the deal goes wrong).

Mike Brock 1y ago

The concept you're referring to is known as "prior restraint".

halalmoney 1y ago

Thanks Mike. There’s much food for thought in this exchange.

a source familiar with the matter 1y ago

"the private court"

As if there is only one

It is precisely the monopoly of determining justice that ancaps reject

Mike Brock 1y ago

I mean, right-libertarians just act as if their first principles ethical stances are self-evidently true. And concerns about things like the problem of collective action are irrelevant. Even more bizarre, is they assume that everyone is going to eventually agree with them and have a moral awakening where they realize "taxation is theft" and therefore we have to get rid of the welfare state.

ede3d957... 1y ago

You get rid of the welfare state by outcompeting it. I see stronger individuals forming stronger communities that protect the rights of the individual as the basis for any working community/society.

And at the same time become better at articulating and communicating what is a common good that benefits each individual directly or indirectly through voluntary interaction/funding.

I don't see one win over the other. I see a powerful dance instead of a existential fight.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

If I have a bunch of healthy body parts needed by 10 other people, and their "collective will" is to sacrifice me to save themselves, does that make it morally okay?

You seem to just be trying to rhetorically evade & deny the underlying principles without addressing them directly.

banjo 1y ago

Uh...taxation is theft...

Full stop.

Mike Brock 1y ago

Basically you're just saying the anarcho-capitalist argument is objectively objectively morally correct. All matters of distribution are just irrelevant because property rights must be absolute. Any claim on the public good is authoritarian. Naturally, I think this stance is both unconvincing and smug.

Jeff Swann 1y ago

What portion of what someone else earns or trades to acquire should you or anyone elss get a say over?

Greed is the desire for things unearned with no regard for those who bear the cost of having those desires satisfied.

I think anyone who wants to initiate threats & coercion to acquire or reallocate resources (no matter how greatly they out number their victims) are morally in the wrong. Rather than calling me "smug," maybe explain how do you go about justifying your initiation of violence?

If the greater good is all that matters, then any healthy individual like you or me could justifiably be sacrificed to provide the body parts needed to save multiple others.

The individual is the smallest minority, the prime unit, if we don't protect individual rights, then we all become slaves to imaginary abstractions. Groups & collectives aren't real, they don't speak, they don't have desires, they are just our mental shortcuts for lots of individuals.

Ike 1y ago

Claiming other people's time and energy should be distributed to lazy and skilless individuals because reasons is also unconvincing. This is why governments require the existence of a police force to enforce tax collection. Pretending this practice somehow furthers the public good can naturally be considered as smug.

If prosperity is the end goal one has to aknowledge the major benefits of the free market in providing it.