Why Im no longer an ACist

[valenzuela]

I will try to write the best I can but its still going to be rusty, I will give an example at the end of each point to make the point clearer. The reason Im not longer an ACist its because imo Acists make the following mistakes:

1) They ignore/dont care about Nature determinism
2) They ignore the problem of incomplete information and thereby fail to understand when human beings cooperate.
3) Failure to find a shade of grey to their absolute property-rights


1) Acists love to talk about how goverments coerce us into doing stuff we dont like, however they dont like it that much when somebody points out that there really isnt much freedom is youre born in a poor family get an horrible informal and formal education and you are never able to develop any significant skill you are preety much screwed , its basically work on something you hate or die, yes I know youre not dying because a moral agent is stabbing you but ure still dying, the problems are not going to go away because theyre not made by a moral agent. Society as a whole has to make the desition wheter its worth to increase “the coercion done by moral agents” in order to decrease the negative impact of “ the coercion not done by moral agents”, I cant really show my calculations but I can intuitively recognize that perhaps the ideal amount of coercion isnt 0, its called common sense.
Example: Suppose a poor girl gets pregnant at 17, her baby is esentially screwed however we can decrease the negative impact of the non moral-agent coercion done to the baby at the expense of increasing the moral agent coercion of those who are better off*.

2) This is quite simple, Acists assume companies will keep their contracts because of reputation,etc,etc. However this isnt medieval Iceland where 2000 people live, we live in an extremely complex society with millions of other people and thereby incomplete information, do you really think that in no goverment land if the owner of a factory fails to pay their workers suddenly all possible workers are going to find out that that specific factory didnt pay their workers? Get real. As in the prisioners dilema, the correct strategy is to cooperate if you are going to be playing the game a lot of times( ie: medieval Iceland) however in this really complex society with millions of people in it the incentives to cooperate are kinda slim if there isnt a third party making sure nobody screws each other big time.( And even if the conditions are made so that people cooperate it doesnt mean they will, people dont evaluate situations on a perfect way.**)

3) This is rather complex, but basically the thing is that there are two extremes regarding property, those are property = theft and property= holy. I think that property rights should be respected but there should be some kinda compensation for those that get harmed by their lack of property because whether u like it or not ure protecting ure land with guns, violence and coercion. The mistakes Acists here is that whoever disagrees with absolute property rights cant even eat an apple because if you eat an apple then somebody else wont be able to eat that apple, how about u have 10 apples and u have to give 1 apple back to the community?

Btw I know a lot of the stuff that I said has refutations, but I would never finish this post if I had to come up with every sensible counter-counter-counter refutations, Im just posting this so that we can get a discussion going, I obviously expect Acists to prey points number1& 3 which are the weakest( I think point 2 will get ignored because imo its the best part of my OP).
Im still open minded to change my point of views so give it ure best shot

* Moorobot said this on a thread about milk for pregnant mothers like a year ago, credit to him for saying that however I dont believe in basically giving both types of coercion the same importance
** Credit to Phil153 for saying this, however I think the reason that no goverments wouldnt result in voluntary cooperation would mainly be because the incentives wont be there not because people suck at evaluating.

[iron81]

[owsley]

1a) In the only country I am really familiar with (the US), state government and its corruption are the foremost cause of poverty.

b) There is no reason that a voluntary solution can't work to fix this. Why does it have to be involuntary? (I am guessing the response will end up being "because people don't agree with me and we need to force them to make the world like I want it)

2. What in God's name do you think will make the state capable of figuring out these asymmetries where incomplete information exists? Giving people this power opens the door to corruption, and whoever gets to choose this will probably just use it as a tool to further their own ideological or monetary interests.

3. So what you are advocating is just pure asset redistribution?

[adanthar]

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1a) In the only country I am really familiar with (the US), state government and its corruption are the foremost cause of poverty.

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[tolbiny]

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1a) In the only country I am really familiar with (the US), state government and its corruption are the foremost cause of poverty.

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[Dan.]

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1a) In the only country I am really familiar with (the US), state government and its corruption are the foremost cause of poverty.

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Do you guys have any links to this effect? I'd be interested in reading up.

[tolbiny]

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1a) In the only country I am really familiar with (the US), state government and its corruption are the foremost cause of poverty.

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Do you guys have any links to this effect? I'd be interested in reading up.

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There is a book called "Losing ground" which came out in 1980 which is good, its written by one of "The Bell Curve" authors so I'm sure its considered controversial in some sense. The author basically tracks statistics from the 1950s-1980 on employment figures, poverty, single parent families (to name a few) discusses how these changes coincide with federal laws and federal funding.

Edited for spelling.

[valenzuela]

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In the only country I am really familiar with (the US), state government and its corruption are the foremost cause of poverty.

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lol, are you being serious?. I would guess the main reason of poverty in America are single parent families, high levels of drug abuse, bad education or something like that. Please explain how the lack of goverment will magicly get rid of poverty.

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There is no reason that a voluntary solution can't work to fix this. Why does it have to be involuntary?

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Btw youre using a debate tactic of labeling my position as something negative and youre position as something positve, the fact is that ure voluntary solutions are not that voluntary for poor kids, kids didnt choose to born on a [censored] up family that lives on a [censored] up neighbourhood.
Semantics aside, the reason its necessary to use "involuntary" solutions its because I feel that its worth to sacrifice a small percentage of the freedom of people like Nielsio in order for some basic welfare for children. ( btw im still advocating a mainly free-market economy, just not THAT free) The coercion I support will only happen if a lot of people kinda agree ( or are tricked into agreeing) with my idea.
And btw ure willing to use coercion as well on those who disagree with absolute property rigths.

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What in God's name do you think will make the state capable of figuring out these asymmetries where incomplete information exists? Giving people this power opens the door to corruption, and whoever gets to choose this will probably just use it as a tool to further their own ideological or monetary interests.

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The state already makes sure ppl dont badly screw each other, for instance if u work for a factory chances are u will get ure paycheck at the end of the month.
I know that my idea has downsides, but I prefer those downsides over the downsides of a totally unregulated market.


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So what you are advocating is just pure asset redistribution?

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Yes because I disagree with absolute property rights.

[ALawPoker]

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Please explain how the lack of goverment will magicly get rid of poverty.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] I don't see this thread going well. Who said it would magically get rid of anything?

Valenzuela, fwiw, based on your arguments here I don't think you ever really "were" an ACist. I thought your objections here were going to be very semantical, but really (as natedogg said) it's just an argument against the general principles of laissez faire policy. That's fine if you want to have that discussion though. I just don't see how you ever were an ACist if these are your disagreements.

[valenzuela]

If X is listed as the foremost cause of poverty, and X goes away Im assuming that the poster thinks poverty will at least dramaticly decrease without X