Love it or Leave it
 

In the PD thread, IMO almost every ACist donned love it or leave it attire as a solution to problem people. Since ACists often dismiss this type of arguement when dealing with governments, the ACist possition is severly diminished if the market solution is of type love it or leave it.

ACist
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The threat of moving to another neighborhood would have a much greater impact on a business then moving to another country would have to the state.

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Anyone who doesn't like the steroid ban does not have to participate. They can in fact form their own leage where steroid use is still allowed, if they like the results more than they dislike the consequences.

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a-ACists
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That would depend on the size of the business. Anyway, what happened to "I don't have to move if I don't like the lawn mowing service"? I thought love it or leave it was a statist argument, not an AC one.

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Leagues, orginaztion, governments, and businesses all attemp to exhibit influence, coercion, or force, on those that oppose it. If someone is getting ripped off by thier government, sports league, standard local service, or employer, the abilty, and resources needed to overpower the Big Brother is only a right in one of them. The ACist took the position that the government is non-volontary, where the league, standards local service is volontary. This is not true, they are voluntary in the same way that you voluntarily are stuck to the earth. Very few people have the resources needed to reach the escape velocity of leagues, governments, or standard local services influences. Borodog, I believe, works as a professor at a state funded university. Explain to me why he doesn't just start his own uni? After all it's the solution that ACists recommend. Don't like the league, form your own. Don't like the defense, the market will provide a good one. Getting treated inhumanly by your employer start your own business.

The thing wrong here is love it or leave it is not a solution to wrongs in society, it's a solution to peoples freedoms, and preferences. A solution to probelm people, those pesky ones the actually think they know a better way. We should be listening to the ideas of anyone that we want to say "love it or leave it" to, as they often will have a valid problem that hasn't been solved, or addressed.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

You are still missing the crucial difference between state-level "love it or leave" it arguments and say, a sports league. Multiple sports leagues, or private business, or what whatever else you'd like to use as an example, can coexist in the same territory, and one is not coerced into participating. While according to some bizarre definition of "coercion" I might be "forced" into playing professional baseball with 3 strikes to an out and 4 balls to a walk because all the local leagues play that way, and no one would want to join my crazy league with 4 strikes and 7 balls, no one puts a gun to my head and forces me to play or pay for others to play. I can play in one league, or another, or a third, or start my own if I can convince or find enough people to play by my different rules, or I can not play or pay at all. I can go bowling instead.

The state is not analogous. It forces you to play and pay, with escalating ferocity until you either give in, or are either imprisoned or dead.

The difference between these two concepts should be obvious, but it becomes most obvious when one realizes that eventually all states take increasingly harsh measures to prevent you from "leaving it", meaning you must "love it" or be imprisoned or killed. It eventually becomes a crime to leave the territorial monopoly of the state, as is evidenced by places like Cuba and the former Soviet Union. Even in the United States the government has creepingly installed a system where you must effectively ask permission of the state to leave. And if the state says no, you can't leave.

This is not in any way, shape, or form analogous to leaving a sports league because I don't like the rules, or not being able to start my own because I don't have the accumulated capital or can't find anyone else who wants to play by my rules. That last is an argument against anarchocapitalism, and a good one, the best one, the only one, the practical argument that "Nobody wants to play by your (lack of) rules." 100% true. You will never get rid of the state as long as the majority of the public believes that the state is necessary (as someone else said, you'll never get rid of churches as long as people believe in God). But that's exactly why I waste my time arguing these things on the internet.

It's also exactly why all states eventually monopolize the public education system.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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It's also exactly why all states eventually monopolize the public education system.

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Do you actually think this is true? I can certainly see an argument to the effect that public education is useful in perpetuating statism. But useful and purposeful/designed are different things.

If you mean this literally it appears quite paranoid to me. I don't think there are elite power-brokers master-planning sweeping idealogical schemas like this. Government is on the most part headless and clunky and staffed by individuals concerned only be self interest. I'm quite sure public education evolved as a practicality.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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It's also exactly why all states eventually monopolize the public education system.

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Do you actually think this is true? I can certainly see an argument to the effect that public education is useful in perpetuating statism. But useful and purposeful/designed are different things.

If you mean this literally it appears quite paranoid to me. I don't think there are elite power-brokers master-planning sweeping idealogical schemas like this. Government is on the most part headless and clunky and staffed by individuals concerned only be self interest. I'm quite sure public education evolved as a practicality.

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It really doesn't matter if these choices come from conscious decicions or as a result of combined incentives.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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It's also exactly why all states eventually monopolize the public education system.

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Do you actually think this is true? I can certainly see an argument to the effect that public education is useful in perpetuating statism. But useful and purposeful/designed are different things.

If you mean this literally it appears quite paranoid to me. I don't think there are elite power-brokers master-planning sweeping idealogical schemas like this. Government is on the most part headless and clunky and staffed by individuals concerned only be self interest. I'm quite sure public education evolved as a practicality.

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Bizarrely powerful deja vu. I'm sure I've had exactly this exchange before.

No nefarious machinations or conspiracies are necessary for effects like this to occur. Over time the state as an organism will tend to evolve in ways that benefit the state. This is because changes that benefit the state are reinforced by the state, and changes that harm the state are penalized by the state.

Although specificlaly in the case of public education, a fairly strong case has been made that it was exactly a sort of "conspiracy" that designed and implemented the modern-style system, although not for nefarious purposes (at least not nefarious to the architects), namely to produce more docile workers who were better able to follow orders. Can you see how the state benefits as a side effect?

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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Over time the state as an organism will tend to evolve in ways that benefit the state. This is because changes that benefit the state are reinforced by the state, and changes that harm the state are penalized by the state.

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This was exactly the argument I was trying to make, and you seemingly agree with it, so I have little to add.

And yes, I can see how this is a benefit to statism. I was just arguing that it is unlikely to be a benefit which emerges from some master plan. If for no reason other than the fact that such a plan would not bear fruit until its originators were long gone. And people tend not to be aimlessly evil, only self-interested.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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Over time the state as an organism will tend to evolve in ways that benefit the state. This is because changes that benefit the state are reinforced by the state, and changes that harm the state are penalized by the state.

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This was exactly the argument I was trying to make, and you seemingly agree with it, so I have little to add.

And yes, I can see how this is a benefit to statism. I was just arguing that it is unlikely to be a benefit which emerges from some master plan. If for no reason other than the fact that such a plan would not bear fruit until its originators were long gone. And people tend not to be aimlessly evil, only self-interested.

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Agreed. Although history, and US history is no exception, is littered with examples of "conspiracies" that are quite effective because a) the conspirators are few, b) they have access to the levers of state power, and c) when you get to define the law, "conspiracy" is a relatively simple and easy thing to accomplish. And the problem is that the public is stuck with the result pretty much in perpetuity.

The US banking industry is a notorious example, beginning with the machinations of Alexander Hamilton more than 2 centuries ago.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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Over time the state as an organism will tend to evolve in ways that benefit the state. This is because changes that benefit the state are reinforced by the state, and changes that harm the state are penalized by the state.

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This was exactly the argument I was trying to make, and you seemingly agree with it, so I have little to add.

And yes, I can see how this is a benefit to statism. I was just arguing that it is unlikely to be a benefit which emerges from some master plan. If for no reason other than the fact that such a plan would not bear fruit until its originators were long gone. And people tend not to be aimlessly evil, only self-interested.

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Agreed. Although history, and US history is no exception, is littered with examples of "conspiracies" that are quite effective because a) the conspirators are few, b) they have access to the levers of state power, and c) when you get to define the law, "conspiracy" is a relatively simple and easy thing to accomplish. And the problem is that the public is stuck with the result pretty much in perpetuity.

The US banking industry is a notorious example, beginning with the machinations of Alexander Hamilton more than 2 centuries ago.

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And I'm sure such examples aren't only historical, I'd be amazed if this isn't still happening. But that's missing d) the conspirators will be around to reap the benefits. Public education and the way it evolved are just too complex and slowly realized to fit this criterion. It's also why I feel strongly that statism itself isn't a result of conspiracy. It may or may not be a bad thing, but that's a different conversation (I don't think we're really disagreeing here).

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

We're not.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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It's also exactly why all states eventually monopolize the public education system.

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Do you actually think this is true? I can certainly see an argument to the effect that public education is useful in perpetuating statism. But useful and purposeful/designed are different things.

If you mean this literally it appears quite paranoid to me. I don't think there are elite power-brokers master-planning sweeping idealogical schemas like this. Government is on the most part headless and clunky and staffed by individuals concerned only be self interest. I'm quite sure public education evolved as a practicality.

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A practicality? I think it was quite deliberate. Don't make light of the possiblity of those with power to use it to furthur their own agenda. Consider these rationalizations offered by proponents of state controlled education -

Martin Luther, in his letter of 1524 to the rulers of Germany:
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Dear rulers…. I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school…. If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to the people to send their children to school, because in this case we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities….

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Archibald D. Murphey, the father of the public school system in North Carolina:
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…all the children will be taught in them….In these schools the precepts of morality and religion should be inculcated, and habits of subordination and obedience be formed…. Their parents know not how to instruct them….The state, in the warmth of her affection and solicitude for their welfare, must take charge of those children, and place them in school where their minds can be enlightened and their hearts can be trained to virtue.

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Citations and futher analysis available here

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

That's interesting reading. But not, as far as I can tell, an example of public education being orchestrated as a means of bolstering statism. Rather it's arguing that the state is the best means of providing an education for children, on subjects the authors feel will be most beneficial to them. Which is not a 'conspiracy' in any sense of the word, it's exactly what public education claims to do.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

well, a dialogue like the above will sure clear the sinuses..........pretty high-powered stuff.........good work all the way around................b

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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That's interesting reading. But not, as far as I can tell, an example of public education being orchestrated as a means of bolstering statism. Rather it's arguing that the state is the best means of providing an education for children, on subjects the authors feel will be most beneficial to them. Which is not a 'conspiracy' in any sense of the word, it's exactly what public education claims to do.

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The problem is in defining what makes education "best."

From the state's perspective, the best education is the one that produces the most cooperative citizens. From the people's perspective, there are many qualities which make educaitonal opportunities better or worse and the importance of each varies from family to family and person to person depending on their subjective preferences. This is a very different definition of quality in education than the state's.

I am not married to the word conspiracy. What I do believe is that most people simply accept public education as a fact of life and also as something "good." Because education is "good" and it seems fair that everyone should have a chance to learn.

I think most people fail to consider the degree to which allowing the state control of the schools necesssarially means forming the nation's youth into a common mold designed to bolster support for the state. I think they fail to consider the degree to which diversity in education is lost when the government takes control.

I guess my point is that when the government aims to provided education it is because of the state's desire to mold the populace in a paricular fashion....it is not to give consumers whatever type of learning opportunities they feel will be most beneficial.

So, for example, you will never see Murray Rothbard on the required reading list to be an accredited learning institution. As Boro said, this has a lot to do with why more people don't advocate AC.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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Borodog, I believe, works as a professor at a state funded university. Explain to me why he doesn't just start his own uni? After all it's the solution that ACists recommend.

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I'm guessing because his goal is to be a professor, not the owner of a university. As long as there is a state funded university, he has just as much right as (actually more right than) the most strident statist to take advantage of it for his own self-interest.

Re: Love it or Leave it
 

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From the state's perspective, the best education is the one that produces the most cooperative citizens. From the people's perspective, there are many qualities which make educaitonal opportunities better or worse and the importance of each varies from family to family and person to person depending on their subjective preferences. This is a very different definition of quality in education than the state's.

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As I said earlier, it may be that public education supports statism (it may not, I can imagine a counter-argument). But I'd claim that if it does so it does so inadvertently or at least by internal evolution. I've never seen any evidence that public education was initiated as a means of supporting statism - the individuals you quote merely thought the state was the most effective means of providing kids with an education they viewed as desirable for the individual, not for the state. They may be wrong on that count, both in premise and the curriculum they envisioned, but that's neither here nor there.

And btw, Rothbard does show up on college-level reading lists. He doesn't figure before that but his writing is pretty advanced so it's hardly surprising.