Contraversial AC Related Thread (TL;PR)

[applejuicekid]

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Me: Laws are the result of voluntary transactions

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This seems obviously not true. I hope I missed something in your post, and you could quickly clarify it for me if I misread. An obvious example is drugs. If I want to buy some drugs the government will use force to stop me. I didn't sign a contract that I wouldn't the drug laws were forced upon me. I understand that I could have made an effort to change the laws by donating money and campaigning for a candidate that would change their laws, but if I don't why does that allow others to use force or the threat of force to stop me?

It seems that you believe that the majority is always right, and is able to use force on the minority whenever they see fit. This is not comparable with the "force" that you believe a free market imposes on people. If I buy a car for $30,000 it doesn't mean someone else couldn't sell you the same car for $100 if the seller so desired. In the free market my actions don't effect you whereas in an election they do.

I feel silly writing all this as it is super obvious, and I must have just misread your post.

[MrBlah]

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It's funny that most ACers on this board choose to be condescending instead of actually addressing the points.

The point I'm making is that pvn's assertion that the market is pure voluntary interaction between two people who want to trade is often not the case in practice. He's using it to highlight the difference between that an government in a dishonest way.


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Of course, your freedom is limited by other people's freedom. However, nobody can force you to buy something, which, in a state, happens all the time.

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pvn: Prices are the result of voluntary transactions
Me: Laws are the result of voluntary transactions

pvn is inherently against the idea of the people delegating others to manage the common affairs of society. Which seems bizarre given that pretty much every single effective organization in the free market and almost every effective structure is biology uses command and control + delegation to get things done.

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Nobody is against delegating. However, a system where the majority decides who to delegate to and then forces the rest of the people to enlist the same services is not only immoral, it's also really inefficient.

[xorbie]

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Of the many things you are missing the most important is probably that in a democracy you don't get to say no. Its quite simple a free market if you don't want to pay $1200 for a 42" plasma TV you can just not buy it. If in a democracy 51% of people vote that I must buy that TV for $1200 then I must even though I'm in the dissenting half. The ability to say no makes the market vastly superior to a "free market of politics".


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Of course. It's clear that freedom both in the market and in politics is a spectrum, and I'm not trying to say that there is no benefit to freeing up a market. I'm just saying that at a fundamental level, the market has the same problem that any sort of democracy will. That the problem isn't as pronounced in the market as it is in politics simply means we must be more vigilant in the political arena (which is, sadly enough, where we are LEAST vigilant in the USA).

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Wait, this sounds to me like you are admitting the market is better than the government, and yet you want us to choose government why?

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I haven't said that at all, and I think my post (and every post I've made) has been pretty clear about not opposing "government" (where rights are determined) and "market" (where prices for goods are determined).

I'm saying that the problems which plague an entirely "free market" political system also plague a "free market" economic system, but that it's not as bad in the latter.

[xorbie]

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Its funny that you come this far and stop. If you want decentralization then why not go down to the individual? That would be the most accountability, the most control over the purse strings, and the largest that each voice gets to be in the mob.

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Quite simply because there is nothing about humanity or the environment that makes living as an individual "best" in basically any sense.

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There is no one right answer to that question.

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If you mean that this isn't necessarily the case for humanity in general, you're wrong (unless you want to nit over what "best" means). If you are trying to say that it doesn't hold for every human, then sure. Doesn't make a huge difference though, does it?

[xorbie]

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Of course, your freedom is limited by other people's freedom. However, nobody can force you to buy something, which, in a state, happens all the time.


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Pretty sure nature can force you to buy things, in the sense that you otherwise die.

[tomdemaine]

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Of course, your freedom is limited by other people's freedom. However, nobody can force you to buy something, which, in a state, happens all the time.


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Pretty sure nature can force you to buy things, in the sense that you otherwise die.

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Nature is in a different moral category to a human becuase there are empirical observable differenves.

[xorbie]

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Of course, your freedom is limited by other people's freedom. However, nobody can force you to buy something, which, in a state, happens all the time.


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Pretty sure nature can force you to buy things, in the sense that you otherwise die.

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Nature is in a different moral category to a human becuase there are empirical observable differenves.

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This isn't an argument, stop pretending it is. It's lazy and not particularly helpful.

[tomdemaine]

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Of course, your freedom is limited by other people's freedom. However, nobody can force you to buy something, which, in a state, happens all the time.


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Pretty sure nature can force you to buy things, in the sense that you otherwise die.

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Nature is in a different moral category to a human becuase there are empirical observable differenves.

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This isn't an argument, stop pretending it is. It's lazy and not particularly helpful.

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It's not an argument it's a fact. You cannot hold nature responsible for its actions in the way you can hold a human being responsible for theirs. Nature has no compunction to be consistent in its moral rules. The fact that nature is violent and arbitrary doesn't mean that humans get to be violent and arbitrary because they are in different moral categories.

[xorbie]

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It's not an argument it's a fact. You cannot hold nature responsible for its actions in the way you can hold a human being responsible for theirs. Nature has no compunction to be consistent in its moral rules. The fact that nature is violent and arbitrary doesn't mean that humans get to be violent and arbitrary because they are in different moral categories.


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You say fact, but I can hold people accountable or unaccountable for whatever I damn well please, so it's really just an opinion.

On top of that, it's lazy because you haven't explained how this has to do with the topic at hand.

[tomdemaine]

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It's not an argument it's a fact. You cannot hold nature responsible for its actions in the way you can hold a human being responsible for theirs. Nature has no compunction to be consistent in its moral rules. The fact that nature is violent and arbitrary doesn't mean that humans get to be violent and arbitrary because they are in different moral categories.


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You say fact, but I can hold people accountable or unaccountable for whatever I damn well please,

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You certainly can but I'd like to see you try it with nature. That's exactly my point. They have a different moral nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute


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On top of that, it's lazy because you haven't explained how this has to do with the topic at hand.

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You're the one that brought up nature.