Property rights, taxes, and theft

[moorobot]

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Oh, OF COURSE there's no reason for self-interested human beings to favor theories that increase the power of the people who control their funding!

[/ QUOTE ] It seems that plenty of them are in favor decreasing the power of the state; that's different than being in favor of eliminating it. There are a lot of people in universities that are strongly against the status quo as well, they are not just in favor of the quo you are in favor of. To see just how ridiculous your position is; egalitarian philsophers, particularly the most famous ones, are themselves relatively rich! They are arguing against there own economic interest; they are arguing that the state be set up so that they make less money! It would seem that if selfishness in the economic sphere was what decided the political views of prof., there would be more libertarian philosophers than egalitarian ones; but the opposite is true.

But more fundementally, do you know what a private university is?!!! A lot of the most acclaimed universities are private. Harvard is one of them, and right-wingers constantly complain that they are far left!! Why aren't private universities churning out and hiring anarchists and libertarians left and right?

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And what exactly do you believe the chances of anarchist philosophers getting hired by university departments full of statists are (unless of course the are the oymoronic Chomskian kind of "anarchist" who believe that the uberstate is somehow "anarchy")? How many athiests get hired to teach religious studies courses at seminary schools?

[/ QUOTE ] The fact of the matter is is that very, very, very few people over the age of 30 are anarchists. And that studying social science intensely and carefully leads people to reject anarchism and libertarianism if they held that belief pre-study most of the time. This whole country is full of 'statists'; what percent of the population is anarcho capitalist? Maybe 1/100th to 1/10000th of a percent (this doesn't necessarily mean you are wrong, my point is that if there are almost no ACists in academics, that would be in line with the population demographics)!? And the U.S. is the country out of all western democracies in which people on average trust the state the least or 2nd least; anarchy is even less well respected in almost all other countries than here (the relative lack of trust in government is partially a cause of, and partially a consequence of, lack of trust in government).

People who study society and government rarely believe in anarchy. I know it is hard for your to swallow, but reality has a democratic bias.

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I mean, what possible reason could Nike's marketting division POSSIBLY have for producing advertising that suggests that their shoes will make me run faster and jump higher except that it must be true?

[/ QUOTE ] They get paid based on the company's judgement of how well they are doing in increasing sales. This is there job description.

Prof.'s are not paid to market the government to people. That is not part of their job description. They won't get fired if they don't do it. They won't get a raise if they do. A simple fact illustrates this: social science professors are paid far less than science and business professors. The people in the University 'defending the state' (which they rarely do, and rarely are encourgaed to do, because there are so few anarchists, and even less halfway decent arguments for it; there is no 'market' for arguing against a position that very few people hold anyway-notice how there are hardly any books that are critiques of austrian economics) are getting paid far less than those who say nothing about the state.

[moorobot]

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And what exactly do you believe the chances of anarchist philosophers getting hired by university departments full of statists are (unless of course the are the oymoronic Chomskian kind of "anarchist" who believe that the uberstate is somehow "anarchy")? How many athiests get hired to teach religious studies courses at seminary schools?


[/ QUOTE ] So you think anarcho-syndicalism is really statist, just like anarchosyndicalists think that ACists are really statists. How cute. So you each believe there are even less anarchists than everybody else does.

[ElliotR]

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For a nice debunking of legal positivism, see this article.

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One doesn't need to excuse it, since positivism with regards to human action [and the law] has been thoroughly refuted.

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Um, no. The fact that you routinely make such absolutist statements suggess very limited research and understanding of what you are talking about. Have you actually read HLA Hart?
Or have you only read "criticisms" posted over at mises.org?

[Riddick]

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Um, no

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Wow, I'm convinced.

Please, stay out of the discussions amongst the big boys. Keep to your hahahaha and other trolling posts. Or better yet, just don't post.

[ElliotR]

"Please, stay out of the discussions amongst the big boys. Keep to your hahahaha and other trolling posts. Or better yet, just don't post."

Sorry, Riddick baby -- or should I call you Lebron -- I will continue to point out whenever I see you say something stupid. You don't like it? Then stop saying stupid things.

Or just keep calling me names, if it makes you feel better.

[tolbiny]

To see just how ridiculous your position is; egalitarian philsophers, particularly the most famous ones, are themselves relatively rich! They are arguing against there own economic interest;

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I would galdly trade my current income for one of $10,000 per year if i was also granted the adoration of tens of thousands of college students and a powerfull position in the government. It is false to pretend that egalitarian philosophers don't imagine themselves leading the countries that these changes arise in, and that their lifestyles would be greatly dimished if they were granted the power they seek.


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A lot of the most acclaimed universities are private. Harvard is one of them, and right-wingers constantly complain that they are far left!! Why aren't private universities churning out and hiring anarchists and libertarians left and right?
This whole country is full of 'statists'; what percent of the population is anarcho capitalist? Maybe 1/100th to 1/10000th of a percent
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You say it yourself, th US is mostly statist and Harvard is in the buisness of brining in students. They also gain from thier students having acess to federal loans, grants and other subidies that allow them to continue to pick the best and the brightest every year.

As to your point about the majority of the country being statist- anyone who has studied social sciences knows that early childhood biases are the hardest to overcome. Anyone who attended public sschools spent the first 18 years of their life hit with propaganda about how great the state is. Washington is credited with leading the US to vicotry in the revolution. Except there was no US as we know it, just a loose coalition. Lincoln credited with "saving" the union- how many high school kids know that there exist arguments that secession was allowed by the constition and that Lincoln was fighting an unjust war. Most of them will never hear this unless they take a personal interest in History. FDR and his new deal program are given credit for pulling the US out of the great depression- does your average student in high school ever hear about those (and this is much more than a small minority of ACers) who think his actions and plans may actually have prolonged it?

[Nielsio]

No, I am working under the assumptions, which I consider baseless, of the opposition, in under to try to come to an understanding. I am accepting what I consider to be a nonsensical assumption for the sake of argument; arguing against a theory on it's own terms.

Well, you are failing in that case. You cannot argue against property rights under the assumption of property rights.

Just like you can't argue against the existence of universal moral principles, because you need to assume them to even try.

[nietzreznor]

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You say it yourself, th US is mostly statist and Harvard is in the buisness of brining in students. They also gain from thier students having acess to federal loans, grants and other subidies that allow them to continue to pick the best and the brightest every year.

As to your point about the majority of the country being statist- anyone who has studied social sciences knows that early childhood biases are the hardest to overcome. Anyone who attended public sschools spent the first 18 years of their life hit with propaganda about how great the state is. Washington is credited with leading the US to vicotry in the revolution. Except there was no US as we know it, just a loose coalition. Lincoln credited with "saving" the union- how many high school kids know that there exist arguments that secession was allowed by the constition and that Lincoln was fighting an unjust war. Most of them will never hear this unless they take a personal interest in History. FDR and his new deal program are given credit for pulling the US out of the great depression- does your average student in high school ever hear about those (and this is much more than a small minority of ACers) who think his actions and plans may actually have prolonged it?

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Excellent post.

I think way too many people are oblivious to the inherent dangers in having a highly centralized school system in which we all learn basically the same thing: whatever government wants us to believe.

[moorobot]

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I would galdly trade my current income for one of $10,000 per year if i was also granted the adoration of tens of thousands of college students and a powerfull position in the government. It is false to pretend that egalitarian philosophers don't imagine themselves leading the countries that these changes arise in, and that their lifestyles would be greatly dimished if they were granted the power they seek.


[/ QUOTE ] This is just absurd. To believe that a non-politician who is arguing for democratic equality and is also tremoundously smart thinks they have any chance that they will some day be a powerful politician running a scheme matching the one they believe in is beyond comprehension. Less than 1/10 of 1% of prof. every try to run for office. When these guys are in there 60s and 70s they are still arguing for egalitarianism; A perfect example: Rawls was on death's door when he wrote his last book; he had no chance of seeing his dream of a fair, just and peaceful world occur in his lifetime but wrote it anyway. I can say the same thing about all the other aging great contemporary egalitarians.

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They also gain from thier students having acess to federal loans, grants and other subidies that allow them to continue to pick the best and the brightest every year.

As to your point about the majority of the country being statist- anyone who has studied social sciences knows that early childhood biases are the hardest to overcome. Anyone who attended public sschools spent the first 18 years of their life hit with propaganda about how great the state is. Washington is credited with leading the US to vicotry in the revolution. Except there was no US as we know it, just a loose coalition. Lincoln credited with "saving" the union- how many high school kids know that there exist arguments that secession was allowed by the constition and that Lincoln was fighting an unjust war. Most of them will never hear this unless they take a personal interest in History. FDR and his new deal program are given credit for pulling the US out of the great depression- does your average student in high school ever hear about those (and this is much more than a small minority of ACers) who think his actions and plans may actually have prolonged it?

[/ QUOTE ] Student loans provided by the government do not come close to providing students with the ability to go to Harvard; Harvard's tuition is more than ten times what most students get, and far more than the maximum allowed.

More fundementally, I don't know how old you are but my whole life I have been exposed to constant pro-market rheotoric and anti-government rhetoric. "The problem with the government is the government" "the gov't that governs least governs best" public schools this and public schools that etc. That is a childhood bias I have overcome. Schools taught me that government was generally bad.

Look, if you were right then as people studied and thought about politics and philosophy more they would become anarchists. But in reality, as I mentioned, the vast majority of people who are anarchists at a young age tend to become 'statists' as they think and study the issues involved more.

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Lincoln credited with "saving" the union- how many high school kids know that there exist arguments that secession was allowed by the constition and that Lincoln was fighting an unjust war.

[/ QUOTE ] The civil war was unjust just because secession was allowed by the constitution? The constitution also doesn't explicity forbid mass genocide in another country; it doesn't mean that a war to save a few million people is unjust.

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FDR and his new deal program are given credit for pulling the US out of the great depression

[/ QUOTE ] I wasn't taught this; I was taught that WWII pulled THE WORLD out of the great depression, not FDR.

Other countries were also still in it when FDR started the new deal. And regardless of whether or not he 'may have actually prolonged it' there was a lot of revolutionary furor in the U.S. at the time and the old way of running an economy was not seen as legitmate because it allowed such a disaster to occur. If the government and mainstream parties didn't TRY to do something about it in all likelihood the people would have revolted and established a radical government and/or, probably on the left. The people would not accept 'the market will just work itself out' as a solution anymore; who would when that market left 25% of the people unemployed, and led to farmers burning their crops to increase the price of the rest while others went hungry?

[moorobot]

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No, I am working under the assumptions, which I consider baseless, of the opposition, in under to try to come to an understanding. I am accepting what I consider to be a nonsensical assumption for the sake of argument; arguing against a theory on it's own terms.

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Well, you are failing in that case. You cannot argue against property rights under the assumption of property rights.

[/ QUOTE ] For the sake of discussion I am assuming self-ownership, not property rights to things.

I'm also arguing that if the theory of property rights is true, that our current distribution is not legitmate anyway, so there is no objection to taxation from that system.