Let Wall Street crack

It depends if it is repaid by the banks. This is collateralised lending, it is not like normal government spending. And it earns interest, so the interest on the borrowed money is not an issue - assuming there isn't a default and the collateral doesn't cover it.

Got it, but I would point out that banking crises can happen with all of these things.

I geuss, I'm not sure about "collusion" though.

Now that I don't agree with.

Of course you are right. I am not claiming this isn't a government intervention, or that we have not corrupted the free market by intervening. Or that it is being done at no cost or risk. I am just arguing against some of the more exaggerated descriptions of what has happened here.

It says the market thought they were bad investments.

I disagree. Nobody is being given 700 billion. It is either a loan or an investment (in practice its a hybrid). It is not a gift, and you have no more inventive to lose it than you have to lose your own money.

Good points all of them. I'm not arguing from a position of 100% conviction here. In order to support the bailout you have to accept that government can successfully intervene in markets, that there is a net gain for the country by intervening. Many free marketers would normally say no, but this is clearly a once in a lifetime event. This is no normal market disruption. And there are cases in history where the government did nothing, and it didn't work out very well.

That is the question that people who study the depression try to answer. Did the massive credit contraction make the depression the depression? And could that have been avoided? I'm arguing that the depression was so destructive that taking the chance to intervene seems like the better idea.

 

My premise is more that without coercion healthy people will join a cheap, nice healthcare system and the sick will be left uncovered. The economics just don't work. Who's going to form a mutual to insure people with chronic illnesses?

I believe in universal health care, just not in state provision of it.

Of course you wouldn't object. But would it work? Would it be OK if the chronicaly ill and the handicapped were simply left out because the free market calculated their premium payments would need to be two million dollars a year?

I'd like that, with the difference being that the state guarantees health care for everyone, but people can chose who they get it from.

Do you honestly think that altruistic people are going to flock to more expensive health care plans that are burdened with other people's massively expensive, incurable illnesses?

I never though they were.

I understand the theoretical ideal.

Well me too but I still don't see much chance of universal health care without the government backing it up. My issue is with state monopolies like the NHS.

I see.

Its not that i don't like the theoretical ideal of anarchy, i just think the real world has a few complications. You might need to make a few compromises.

 

See this is why socialism shouldnt be mixed with anarchism. Those people are just communists.

As for health insurance I see no reason for it to be universal or government run. An anarchic system ought to give me the right to let other people die and not give a fuck.

One problem you have is in assuming that only healthy people would be covered. Well yeah but thats no reason to say they'd never get sick. So of course those who are ALREADY sick wouldnt get cover, they arent looking for health insurance they are looking for an immediate hand out.

I take issue with the idea that I should make compromises though. Thats effectively taking the statist line of pointing a gun at me and forcing me to bend over and 'compromise'.

I think I can make a better argument for letting wall street fall over also.

 

Catz,

I should point out that social anarchism does give you the right not to give a shit about others.
You're being as blinkered about social schools of anarchism as most lefties are about market schools of anarchism.

 

Not so, the socialist anarchist and communist interpretations of property rights are identical. I checked.

 

Hmm. I still don't see why the loan should be made in the first place.

Agreed.

You seem to be arguing that it should be done, but I don't really see why.

So why subsidies it? Why let the American public bear the loss instead of just private investors who are foolish enough to make it?

Yes. A loan that otherwise would not be made were it not for government intervention. This also relates to my previous point. This loan is going to be granted to an industry that is so unproductive that it cannot get a private loan. It is being given a second chance. Even if they did have an incentive to be productive (which I doubt), they have not been efficient up until this point, why should they be rewarded for it?

I'm an anarchist

I would say that Hoover's and Roosevelt's interventions had terrible effects on the original market crash that occurred and made it far worse. Price freezes, wage freezes, tariffs, subsidies, quotas, production controls and restrictions, criminal penalties for violating these restrictions, massive taxation and spending etc.

 

No, one entails the state seizing all property. The other, is a body of several different philosophies, the majority of which believe in possession, a different version of property.

however, your point wasn't about property constructs, it was that in a social anarchist system you would be forced to care about others health, this isn't so, since social anarchism entails a voluntary system where people provide one another with mutual aid.

Your right not to care about others isn't curtailed by others refusing to let you coerce them by means of a dated and largely irrational social construct allegedly stemming from "natural rights".

No one forces you to keep human company

 

im curious, how would you define "possesion" as type of ownership?

 

Well I see "ownership" as a social construct, to deal with the fair use and exchange of objects between social individuals, and I see possession as being this also.

I suppose you could pick fault with the term "ownership" as it is strictly applied.
I simply meant that possession was an alternate and thus analogous social construct for the dealing of property.

Proudhon called property theft, but he also called it liberty.

 

Be honest Bonsai your idea of possession is simply a grandiose version of squatters rights. You, like a communist, challenge the idea that land or the means of production may be wholly owned through the initial outlay of capital
because you see the control of resource as a root of 'coersion'.

As far as health care goes I see so called anarchists overjoyed that Obama has made the white house. Word on the street is everybody is hoping for universal healthcare payed for by taxation. You've all been watching Michael moors 'sicko' to much.

As for healthcare, a communist, which is what you are, will inevitably argue for an expansion of the state welfare system... to be administered by workers councils ( a reshuffled upper cast ).

I dispute your self identification as an anarchist on the basis that you are not anti state just anti encumbant.

 

I believe it is Pierre Proudhon's idea of possession, much as I would like to take the credit for it.
However, I fail to see your point here, since your original contention was nothing to do with property, you stated that you didn't like social-anarchism because you wanted the right not to give a damn about the welfare of others, I pointed out (quite rightly) that under a social anarchist system, you do have this right.
If what you actually meant was that you dislike social anarchism because you would rather live in a society where the social construct of property is practiced, just come out and say it, I don't bite, and you might find we have more in common than you think.

I live in the UK, already have free healthcare, and, if you care to read back across the thread, will see me voice several criticisms of the current healthcare system.

I was not "overjoyed" at Mr Obama's election, though I'm mildly glad that one of the lesser-evils seized power, he is ultimately a statist like any other.
I have been duly berated by my liberal friends for this stance

Now, I am trying to be patient with you, because I suspect you are simply being willfully ignorant rather than actually incapable of understanding my stance.
For the record, economically I am a mutualist, we are split from the communists for several reasons, because we do not believe in a state, and also, because we support markets.
What I advocate (and I think I have already made this clear in previous posts) is people voluntarily organising mutually beneficial healthcare associations.
What exactly is the capitalist objection to a group of people choosing to pool their resources to help look after one-another? Non-participants are not obstructed from finding their own means of seeking healthcare, and people could join or leave such a scheme as and when they pleased.

That would be a reasonable argument, if I had made any argumentation in favour of a forced system of welfare.

But I haven't.

I'll ask again. What precisely is it, about a group of people voluntarily organising for their own benefit, that you think is the same as a centrally run, and enforced system of social welfare?

I do not find such a concept inconsistent with Libertarian or Market-Anarchist ideas.

Or are you suggesting that a capitalist society is not only one where people can look out only for themselves? but one where they are forced to look out only for themselves?

That seems something of a contradiction to me

 

The reason I outright don't believe that you'd stick to your word of avoiding coercion in the provision of healthcare is that anyone who ascribes to communist conceptions of property doesn't believe in freedom. Anyone who is willing to balance the needs of society against the needs of the individual is not an anarchist. In anything other than a purely capitalist society there is redistribution of wealth and general restriction of freedom.

So your stated positions aren't logically consistent with one another which is why you have to reconcile them with one another before i'll believe you about anything.

 

Except I think we've established that I don't hold communist conceptions of property, I hold mutualist ones.
As (again we already established) mutualists and communists do not agree on a lot of economic issues.

Also, if you want to make blanket-generalisations, it would be nice if you tried to qualify them with some logic.

So far, you managed only to make an association fallacy (Communists don't hold traditional property values, Bonsai doesn't hold traditional property values, therefore Bonsai is a communist), and a straw man fallacy (putting forward a false conception of my beliefs, and criticising them, rather than the beliefs put forward).

In short, your argument doesn't make logical sense.

Ultimately, whether or not you believe in my integrity is wholly irrelevent, unless you can provide some rational basis for the argument that all people who voluntarily pool their resources for a common goal will inevitably attempt to take over all society.

This would put quite a lot of organisations on your list of "communists" including I believe, most rightwing political parties.

Let us reiterate the point of dispute.

You claim: That you do not like the idea of anarchists voluntarily pooling resources, because you do not want to pay for healthcare of others.

I claim: That in a system of voluntary healthcare organisations, it follows logically that you do not have to, and therefore your criticism is invalid.

You claim: That you don't trust leftwingers, therefore they are all trying to start a soviet-style centralisaed healthcare system, therefore your criticisms are valid because you aren't required to criticise the concepts actually being discussed, only the ones you project upon others...

See where we're hitting the sticking point?

Claiming that you simply don't trust anyone wih leftwing leanings, might well explain your prejudices, but doesn't in itself provide a logical resolution.

Individuals, working together for a common goal, is perfectly individualist, and not in the slightest incompatible with capitalism.
Or would you call the ideas of Max Stirner unindividualist?
For future reference, what do you consider to be a "pure" capitalist society?
Because to my knowledge the definition is a contentious one.

One where people are banned from working together?
Doesn't sound very individualist or capitalist to me.

 

Catz

For your benefit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)

It may be worth noting, that the Labour Theory of Value (arguably the cornerstone of mutualist thought) was also believed by such well known entrepreneurs and individualist anarchists as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker.

 

how does carson view the labor theory of value? i know he tries to some how reintegrate with it subjectivism and marginal theories of value. is that correct?

 

So what you are rather snottily telling me is that you see no error in the internal logic of a system that commands both of the following.

The surrender of means of production/land to a collective authority
Opt out public services

These policies are based on two diametrically opposed precepts...
1) The individuals rights are secondary to the needs of society as a whole.
2) The individuals rights must be recognized including his ability to withold resource from society.

BTW the definition of property rights you advocate is not appreciably different to that penned by Karl Marx. Whether you choose to accept it or not you are a communist and communists are big state oppressors.

 

one problem i have with some leftist theories of property is their opposition to absentee landlordism. ie property is only valid if being used.

 

I think so, I've not read much of Carson yet.

My view is that labour can be used to put an objective cost on a thing, whilst supply & demand describes a power relationship that affects negotiation

 

No, because what you've repeatedly ignored is that I'm advocating a voluntary system.
In every single post you have ducked, dived and dodged the single issue that you have raised.
Your false claim that in a social anarchist system you would be forced to care about the health of others.

I am pro-individual, however, an individual using economic coercion to withhold from society resources that the individual in question has not produced I see as being absurd.
However, he naturally has the right to do this, and it is people's own fault if they relate to their employers that way.

Since you claim to be a capitalist, you no doubt believe that all value is subjective, and that an employer is within his rights to offer low wages an exploit labour.
And why shouldn't he? if it is in his self-interest and he can.

What I'm saying, is that his ability to do so is based on nothing but his power to do so, he does not have an inherent right to behave in such a way, and the only defence capitalists have concocted is the pseudo-rationalist idea of "natural rights" as though human property ideas could be inherent in the universe.

Since power is the deciding factor, I have no issues with workers unionising, and using their own coercive power to take higher wages, and gain better control over their lives.

Rather than a business being a mini-fiefdom, which is inherently anti-individual, it becomes a coalition of entrepreneurs.

How individual humans relate to one-another is their own business, and if some want to operate in a traditional-capitalist manner, that is for them to decide, but I'm saying that personally, I do not intend to let people treat me that way.

And as such, I believe in voluntarily pooling my resources with other like-minded people, to support our mutual healthcare.

You have yet to demonstrate how this idea (the central issue being discussed) is in any way prohibitive of your personal freedom.

Apparently Proudhon and Marx didn't think so, since one of the many things they fell out over was their different ideas surrounding property and markets.

I've shown you many times, using clear and fair arguments, why this proposition is nonsense, and why your idea that people organising for mutual healthcare has absolutely no bearing on your freedom.

You are yet to provide a single rational argument in your defence, you just keep screaming "no no! you're a communist"

Which yes, would be good, because whilst you are unable to defeat the arguments I actually put forward, you do seem quite capable of criticising communism.

Straw-men are handy like that

 

You say that im ducking and diving but you refuse to acknowledge that you are operating a political ideology that contains seperate policies rooted in conflicting ideologies.

and you can act as smug as you please but your definition of property rights are text book communist. Its not a straw man. I want you to outline the difference between your concept of property and that of marx.

The reason I insist on internal consistency is because otherwise chunks of your supposed policy tend to fall away in the process of implementation. You cant pick and mix extreme right and left or liberal and authoritarian. Ideology must match policy or you'll end up contradicting yourself which, in politics, amounts to lying to people.

BTW there is nothing subjective about capitalism other than the value assigned to goods by differing individuals which itself tends to be down to their real differing circumstance.