Chomsky on Anarchism (sidenote; education) - Page 11

Subfallen · #**101** 11-10-2007, 12:46 PM

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Well, "drug dealing" would be subsumed under the umbrella of big pharmaceuticals...so it would be J&J, Pfizer, Merck, and Abbott cashing in, not necessarily Joe Gangster.

But, yeah, they would def make some insane $$.

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In a free market, why would they make insane $?

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For the same reason tobacco companies do?

TomCollins · #**102** 11-10-2007, 12:48 PM

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Well, "drug dealing" would be subsumed under the umbrella of big pharmaceuticals...so it would be J&J, Pfizer, Merck, and Abbott cashing in, not necessarily Joe Gangster.

But, yeah, they would def make some insane $$.

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In a free market, why would they make insane $?

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For the same reason tobacco companies do?

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Except they don't. And most of the reasons why they would make a lot of money is due to price floors imposed by the government.

Jamougha · #**103** 11-10-2007, 12:53 PM

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Well, "drug dealing" would be subsumed under the umbrella of big pharmaceuticals...so it would be J&J, Pfizer, Merck, and Abbott cashing in, not necessarily Joe Gangster.

But, yeah, they would def make some insane $$.

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In a free market, why would they make insane $?

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For the same reason tobacco companies do?

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They make good money but certainly not insane money. Why do you imagine otherwise?

Subfallen · #**104** 11-10-2007, 01:19 PM

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Well, "drug dealing" would be subsumed under the umbrella of big pharmaceuticals...so it would be J&J, Pfizer, Merck, and Abbott cashing in, not necessarily Joe Gangster.

But, yeah, they would def make some insane $$.

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In a free market, why would they make insane $?

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For the same reason tobacco companies do?

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They make good money but certainly not insane money. Why do you imagine otherwise?

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What? I guess "insane" is a gray area, but Altria Group, for example, has a market cap. of $150B...

ianlippert · #**105** 11-10-2007, 01:24 PM

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Some people, definitely. But most people would have nothing to do with charity if the government wasn't here to coerce us into funding social programs with our tax dollars.

At least IMO.

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You say we need the government to help the poor. The government has the resources to eliminate poverty in America and yet there is still poverty. Something doesnt add up here.

Although they do pump resources into charitable causes, they also take massive amounts of resources away from the working class. So the people that do care about the poor are no more (and I'd argue less) effective than if we lived in a free market and those that cared about the poor just voluntarily took care of the poor.

If people dont care about the poor why do our politicians always cloak every beauracratic program in the veil of morality? Why is it that they claim to be in Iraq helping the poor Iraqis build their country? Why dont they just say "Hey we are going over to Iraq to blow the [censored] out of them, murder thousands of innocent civilians, steal their oil, and give a bunch of your money to connected contractors"? Because it would never work, people are inherantly moral and this is why the government has to constantly pay lip service to the morals that society values.

Its just unfortunate that people cant see through the hipocrisy and come to terms with what is actually going on in their society.

Subfallen · #**106** 11-10-2007, 01:43 PM

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You say we need the government to help the poor.

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Not really, as I believe it's mostly impossible to "help" society in the big picture without genetic engineering or some sort of mechanism to punish dysgenic reproduction. And---again---it seems the government today does exactly the opposite.

ianlippert · #**107** 11-10-2007, 02:14 PM

Then why would you argue for government charity in the first place. I mean if you arent really interested in discussing these things thats find, I was just getting the impression that you were interested in finding solutions for the poor.

Subfallen · #**108** 11-10-2007, 02:53 PM

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I was just getting the impression that you were interested in finding solutions for the poor.

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Meh, I just doubt that getting rid of inefficient government charity would somehow "add by subtraction" and decrease the immediate suffering caused by poverty.

But that's just the short term. In the long term, the best strategy might be to eliminate all non-obligating charity to adults. (For example, make sterilization a prerequisite to receiving welfare.)

Copernicus · #**109** 11-10-2007, 03:17 PM

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tame,

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But anyway, you don't think it would work at all and I don't think it would work for a group of more than say 30-40 people max. So I don't think we disagree much here.

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And yet it has worked reasonably well for 50 years in a corporation with up to 75,000 employees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag...ve_Corporation

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In no way is a company that receives special tax incentives an example of AC.

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This isn't about AC.

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Fine, it isnt an example of Anarcho-anything

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Sure it is. It is a valid example of anarcho-syndicalistic principle, which is a very different ideology from anarcho-capitalism.

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It cant be anarcho anything because it is receiving subsidies from a GOVERNMENT

xorbie · #**110** 11-10-2007, 06:11 PM

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The question is to what degree do these property rights give us total dominion of our property, under what conditions may this be taken away, and so forth.

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This is what I dont get. If I dont have a right to my property what gives the government a right to my property? Just because people cant think of better ways to help poor people? The idea that we need a government to help the poor is one of most persistant myths we perpetuate as a society, to the detriment of the poor.

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Again, rights are simply things that society has agreed you deserve or have a claim to. If you don't think the government is helpful for solving certain problems of social significance, and if you had a bunch of people who agreed, you could go without one and see how it went.

I'm not sure I agree, so I'd probably want a government of some sort, although it would certainly look quite different than the structure we have here (or in other industrial countries).