Cliche red herrings against libertarianism

In your first response, you said, "Liberals believe we will be served with the best service, not have to pay a dime and, make life "equal" for everyone (except government who'd be far richer than anyone." Doesn't really sound like "trying to understand" what I was saying. This sounded like an assertion, and part of your line of argumentation to me. Of course, I didn't advocate any of that (except maybe the part about making life more equal for everyone, but I didn't suggest we do that by enriching the government). You lump any and all "Liberals" into a single class--to you a Democrat, a Communist, and a Libertarian Socialist are exactly the same and receive the same arguments. Although I realize that my post "could seem like a communist," they would only seem so to someone with no ability to distinguish between various strands of leftist thought. I said at the very beginning of my first post and will continue to say, I am talking about some form of small-government liberalism as my ideal--recognizing that we are arguing about ideals, not pragmatism (since I feel the actual implementation of an anarchist society is just as unlikely as implementation of your free-market libertarianism). All your arguments are about the evils of big government, but since I am not advocating for big government then, at least as regards my posts, those are indeed straw men.

I don't understand this statement. The government doesn't "hire government employees"...people become "government employees" when the government hires them. No one is born a government employee. From the point of view of the employed, what is the difference between a government job and a private sector job? Government employees spend their money as consumers in the same economy everyone else does. I'm not arguing for one or the other, but this statement just makes no sense.

Since companies have an advanced degree of control over their own publicity, and especially since the corporate media is a major business with ties to, and interests in common with, other major corporations, it's not really safe to rely on "publicity" as the sole/primary protection against the bad behavior of companies. Bad practices of companies are only regulated by market forces if (a) consumers know they are happening (requires methods of information and the ability to inform oneself, which is far from guaranteed), (b) consumers know they are bad (requires access to relevant science about health or environmental effects, and the ability to see through propagandistic spin) and, (c) consumers can be induced to care (if the degradation or victimization is happening to different demographics, or in different areas, than those that consume the products, there is little guarantee consumers will use their dollars conscientiously).

Just citing examples of subsidy-supported monopolies is not sufficient to prove that they are the only kinds of monopolies that can exist. Moving on.

Who indeed.

If by "they" you mean "3/4 of the duly-elected state legislatures," then this is true. Do you actually know how the Consitution works? Article V IS part of the original Constitution, and lays out the process for amending the Constitution. Any amendment passed according to Article V becomes part of the Constitution and is by definition "Constitutional." By your same logic it is unconstitutional for women to vote.

I agree with pretty much all of this. For this reason, I too, would be in favor of a smaller government.

I agree with this too.

I disagree with your basic assertion that it is only through collusion with the state that a corporation can do harm. All the major players use the state avenue now because that is a nexus of power, but if the government suddenly evaporated, new forces would arise and combine to fill that power vacuum. Those corporations aren't just going to give up their powerful monopolies and immense positions of privilege. I don't believe the power of consumer choice in the market place would be sufficient to bring society back into equilibrium and reduce exploitation. Remember it was not that long ago that private trading interests, without any particular degree of government subsidy, were selling slaves for profit. The basic tendency of capital is to steal raw materials from the commons and exploit labor for profit.

Bullshit. Ever heard of a mercenary army? Ever heard of a soldier for hire? Ever heard of Blackwater Security? There is also a more insidious kind of force, namely: owning all the means of living. People will do what you want if the alternative is to starve and die.

This is patently false. Corporations hurt people all the time. Ask the slaves what the slave trading companies did to them. Ask the Indians what the East India company did to them. Ask Amazonian tribesmen what ranching, hydroelectric, and real-estate interests are doing to them right now. Ask Nigerians what oil corporations have done for their country, or South Africans what diamond mining companies do for them. Sweat shop labor, dangerous and deadly working conditions...I would file all these things in the category of corporations hurting people. Many of these crimes were committed without help from, indeed sometimes in open defiance of, the duly-elected governments or tribal affiliations existing in those places.

If the minimum wage job were the only thing on offer, I'd wager you would accept it rather than starve to death on the streets.

I believe I have addressed this. I believe your belief in the power of moralizing consumers is naive.

As if that were not bad enough.

Jail or fines require a similar regulatory framework and a similar bureaucratic enforcement mechanism. Some system has to be in place to detect the wrongdoing, investigate, and prosecute. And government runs the jails as well. I don't see how one is less apt to corruption, or requires less government, than the other.

Of course it can happen. Examples of totally non-exploitative entrepreneurship that are capable of competing against much more ruthless and exploitative competitors are few and far between though. A profit-driven free market system isn't set up to reward honesty, justice, or humaneness. It is set up to reward ruthlessness, cunning and greed. The most successful will therefore generally be the most ruthless, the most cunning, and the most greedy.

In an extremely materialistic and consumeristic culture, particularly one where it is impossible to make one's living in any way from nature, of course this will be (generally) true. I don't have to agree that it is inherent.

Key words bolded.

In a free market, labor is a purchased commodity controlled by the laws of supply and demand. There is no such thing as employers "being generous" to their employees. In general, they will pay them the minimum they can. Again you don't seem to acknowledge some fundamental tenets of the relationship between capital and labor.

Yup.

It seems that you set this date somewhere between 1913 (extablishment of income tax and Fed) and 1970 (when the Controlled Substances Act became law). It should be sufficient to disprove your point that, no matter where within that range we set the date, we can look earlier than that date and find narrow "exceedingly wealthy" interests controlling huge sectors of the society and fucking people over. If you think pre-1913 was a golden age with burgeoning middle class and no exploitation of the poor by the rich, you don't know your history. Conclusion: government collusion is not a necessary ingredient in rich people being able to fuck people over. Control of capital is the essence of that power.

Bias doesn't enter into it. He became "biased" against the ownership class after being privy to their crimes and oppression. His basic analysis of the relation between labor and capital should be examined on its merits. I feel it holds up extremely well under examination. By so saying I am under no obligation to agree with his particular recommendations for addressing that problem.

This is characteristic of most industrial capitalism. Marx's Germany was not a unique anomaly that led him to make faulty generalizations. USA in the time of Marx (a time you would have us believe was a small-government golden age) was no less stratified by class than Germany was at the time, especially if we are talking about the urban industrial centers in the North. Incidentally, if this weren't the case, there would not have been the huge surge of Marx-descended political action (whether communist, socialist, or whatever) in America in the first 4 decades of the 20th century, nor would the government and the business sector have worked so violently to suppress that activity.

I never knew America created the lower and upper classes too! Government was already plenty big in the 1960s. The military-industrial sector of the economy was still rolling straight on from WWII. The society in the 60s was extremely stratified and the "middle class" was in fact a minority of the overall population, which was overwhelmingly "lower class." Government's involvement in the private sector is not the "only thing that has changed." That is extremely reductive and totally unprovable. Nor has it, in fact, changed, since the US government was involved in the private sector way before the 1960s...e.g farm subsidies, and doing dirty work like union-busting and regime-toppling on behalf of the corporations.

U.S. gov is the biggest of the big, and bullies more than all the rest. U.N. is undoubtedly a less powerful entity than the U.S. gov. Neither the size of its enforcement apparatus, its scope of operations, or its operating budget hold a candle to that of the U.S. gov.

Those things are already illegal and they happen all the time.

I believe in democracy. Democracy means control by the affected people over the institutions that control their lives. Conglomerations of private capital that function for the enrichment of their shareholders affect the lives of many more. Anyone for justice and democracy must oppose private tyrannies along with state forms of tyranny.

You made the mistake of believing Obama was a Liberal. He is a Conservative as was Clinton and Carter. True Liberalism, at least by my definition, lies well to the left of any Democratic presidential candidate. By labeling myself a liberal I take NO responsibility to defend the heinous policies of this or any other administration.

I agree with all of this.

 

I like the idea of a smaller government---I just want to be convinced of how it can work----I am happy to see a new participant here----Raga Mala----perhaps this will get us somewhere.

However---as far as libertarianism itself----the strongest theory behind it that I am aware of is the Objectivist Rationalism of Ayn Rand.

We have yet to get into that dimension of this discussion.

Her philosophy is very Modern Age---unfortunately the Modern Age has carried us into the Post Modern Crisis----and no political philosophy has yet to answer to the problem of alienation brought up by Karl Marx and the existentialists.

Rand falls into the same problem as Marx when he focused more on dialectic materialism. Humans are not rational creatures---the cold dead halls of science and objectivism cannot force mankind to interrelate with each other in a strictly rational manner. While we all experience reality around us in an objective fashion---this objectivism is experienced subjectively. And it is this subjectivism that is largely ignored.

The Modern Age was all about shaping conscious reality---the objective world around us, and objectively the world seems like it should be rational. But it completely ignored the subconscious and the irrational realities that also make up human existence. Altruism, for example, comes from the part of man that is feelings---therefore it is irrational, and Ayn Rand who is clearly alienated from her own subconscious, sees altruism as a bad thing.

This all boils down to that one very hard question that breaks down any attempts to better our social realities----providing meaning to existence.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEZfMruLMSI"]The Federal Reserve Fraud Part 1 of 5 - YouTube

MVW- watch this. He explains why and how Bankers started the great depression.

 

I watched it. I didn't go through all 5 of them---but I watched a couple...

You know----in the 1950's Senator McCarthy preached of the terrible menace of Communism and Socialism---suddenly communists were everywhere, in the movie industry, in the media, in politics, driving taxis, teaching our children... He was urging Americans to spy on Americans (and what kind of country does that remind you of?)... The problem was not Communists or Socialists, but rather who America should have really been wary of (hint: It was Senator McCarthy).

It is stuff like this that people always busy themselves with, get all worked up about, research, get crazy over, and meanwhile, our civil liberties get taken away. When someone is pointing fingers, you've got to look at who it is that's pointing and ask, "Why are they pointing?"

These videos are filled with half truths, twisted truths, and deliberate fabrications. For example, margin loans are not like favors given by the Cosa Nostra and callable at any time. The margin reserve requirement could be lifted, based on perceived increase risk, this could cause some margin calls, but brokerage firms are pretty lenient about such calls. I would have to check if that happened, but I doubt it---the Street rhetoric of the time was very bullish---just as it is in any major top. But true margin calls are caused by declining stock prices----when the value of the stock drops below the margin requirement. Why would this have started happening?

Because on September 18th stock prices fell sharply. On September 20th, the London Stock Exchange crashed, the market then became very volatile, dropping sharply one day, then rising up the next (this is common at market tops), a lot of people get hurt in that volatility, and margin calls pile up. On black Thursday, October 24th, the market dropped 11%---clearly enough to create a large number of margin calls, especially in the 1920's when requirements were smaller, and traders had ways of multiplying margin loans.

Over the weekend, people across the country learned of the market's troubles (CNBC didn't exist back then, and such news made the most impact through the newspapers). On Monday--black Monday--October 28th, investors across the country decided it was time to get out and the market slid another 13%----many more margin calls piled up. Then came October 29th, Black Tuesday---the crash.

The Rockefeller's and William Durant, and others lost huge fortunes in the market, trying to support it, and give investors hope. I am not trying to defend the wealthy of the times----they did horrible things, especially in the 1890's and into the early 1900's when they wielded about as much power over the country as they do today. They impoverished most of America, laying off a good portion of the US workforce, and then forced the others to work harder, to increase productivity. They even put a President in office to protect their interests. But I look at facts and reality rather than flights of fancy that weave a bunch of possibilities into a conspiracy of global proportions.

Another example is the Panic of 1907, which he says was created by J.P. Morgan. No----the trigger was a failed attempt to corner the market on the stock United Copper Company. Then the Knickerbocker Trust co. collapsed. J.P. Morgan jumped in and tried to support the market which was successful, until another brokerage firm collapsed due to heavy borrowing against a railroad stock. The story goes on...

Then the idea that bankers sent the RMS Lusitania into German submarine infested waters? It was a British luxury liner---heading home to her home port in Britain. She was sunk near Ireland. Yes there were threats (In fact the Germans publicly warned US civilians not to ride that ship----but to attack a civilian ship was breach of the Cruising Rules (Though the British had breached them already).

I've got more to say about all this, but I've got to get to bed. I'll continue when I have a chance tomorrow.

 

I have been trying to find time to respond to the responses you gave that I have not had a chance to yet.

Though first I did want to respond to this comment of yours when I said that communism has never been achieved anywhere:

Now, being that I am a liberal, I am of course going to answer, that of course Communism would work here---once capitalism has been toppled, Marxists will rise up and lead people into the light of true utopian living---only after the collapse of capitalism will those doctors realize that the only true reason to go to school for 8 years, is the good it brings to the people---for once everyone owns everything... NOT!

Did I forget to mention that not only has Communism not been achieved anywhere, but that it is a failed philosophy of the Modern Age? Sure, communal living is a great concept--and traditional communal societies function very nice---but only in cases where it arises naturally---usually in a tribal setting.

Communism does not arise naturally, rather it is a product of objectivistic rationalism. Economically and politically it bears one fatal flaw--Marx misunderstood the market (and the alienation it creates between consumer and producer) as a characteristic of Capitalism. Instead, it is a characteristic of all Industrial Age societies.

However, I think it is equally flawed that he believed mankind could be rationally shaped to fit into his ideal societal structure. Communism, through the cold-hearted objectivism of science, was supposed to heal the alienation that man experiences in modern life, and present a truly humanistic value of the individual as human. This is achieved through the suppression of the irrational impulses, values, and qualities of life. In other words, it is the victory of the objective (or the conscious and physical) over the subjective (the irrational subconscious, emotional, nonphysical...).

However, clearly it is man's alienation from his subconscious, and from the irrational aspects of his psyche and personality, that is at the root of Modern Day societal problems. Marxism, with its strong objectivistic focus, only adds to the alienation, leaving mankind even further from his true holistic self--a being that lives in both a conscious and subconscious reality.

What we need now is a rise of subjectivism--a reconnection to what is truly human--a shift from the cold dead rationalism of the Modern Age. This was at the heart of the hippie movement. One example I see of this today is the Hunger Game movies. I have not read the books, but the two movies out so far are clearly stories of subjective nature rising up against Objectivism manifested in all its glory.

Coincidentally Ayn Rand's philosophy, appropriately labeled, Objectivism, is also a product of the Modern Age, and once again downplays subjective reality in favor of objectivistic rationalism. Altruism in a capitalist setting, for example, is based more on irrational impulses than on objectivistic ideals. I therefore believe that her philosophy would leave man equally alienated, if put into place.

 

It's ideological, and it doesn't work. Government takeover of the markets is far from what me, and other Constitutionalist see as "utopia," to me, it's fascism and tyranny under a different label.

People are FORCED to pay 60-90% of their paycheck, and ONLY receive services government grants to everyone (like "free" pre K and healthcare.)

The problem with this, is it is far from free. Government is essentially willing to slip into communism, because it gives them greater power, and allows them to institute monopolies, abolish competition, raise prices and, force people to buy in. What if someone doesn't believe in Western Medication?? Why should they be forced to pay for this??

What if someone never has any kids??
Why should they pay for people who have 7-8 kids, and live off of the system??

The welfare state doesn't work- we only keep it going to keep the crime rate down. Our economy would be much more stable if people earned their money fairly, and didn't have it redistributed by government who wastes it.

Exctly! small settings. YThat is why I said the government should lay off of people, and if they want to start/join a commune- go right ahead.

However, people should not be forced to buy into an all-powerful government, merely to allegedly "help people," when a majority of our tax money goes into military and foreign aid overseas. The answer is not to perpetuate this spending system, but cut back, and cut these invasive government programs, which are used by corporations to dictate our lives.

Government today is in with the corporations. Obamacare was sponsored by the elite insurance companies. It should be obvious tht Washington is disattached from the Citizens, and the meager things they allegedly offer us, is not worth our freedom and our Human Rights. And that is what's happening.

I agree, because Marx openly supported force, and as a true hippie, I believe any kind of force is wrong, regardless of the excuse (unless it is self defense)

Our government is already morally wrong in that, they have executed citizens and passed laws which clearly violate the Constitution.

I don't know much about Ayn Rand. But, I know about people like Ron Paul, Andrew Napolitano, Jesse Ventura and, Adam Kokesh; and, I believe what they say about the Government taking our Civil Liberties is true, and I also believe both major parties, feed into bigger and, more invasive governments.

I see the problem much differently than Leftists, because to me, government does things for the benefit of them and their corporate buddies.

The hippie movement wasnt about raising taxes on anyone, or, implementing more force or invasive programs. Hippies, in their day, would be fighting Obama, just like they did Nixon. Because he's a crook, and he's controlled by special interests.


To me, giving someone control over the wealth of 313 million people, is far too much control. They get enough taxes already, but they spend it wrong. If we make them raise taxes, it'll only shrink the middle class further.

I don't think there is any way a corporation could hurt you if they can't commit force, bribery, fraud or, damage your property. They do all this now, with he help of government. We need small government, which punishes REAL crimes, and allow people to do what they wish with their own bodies!

And imo, Liberalism does not represent that in the least!! They love the EPA telling people they can't grow certain trees on their yard, the FDA telling people they can't drink raw milk (which is common in other countries,) and, they love the FCC controlling what is punished on TV, our remote controls, cell phones, Video game consouls etc.

It should be obvious, the government has taken far too much control, and far too many rights. Communism makes me think of orwells "1984;" It's total government control!