So... what if we do something like cut all oil subsidies and stop military support/protection for oil wells in troubled areas of the world, making gas prices in US possibly go up to $6 a gallon, and stopped subsidies for highways and roads, making them depend on tolls and other means to raise money for upkeep, thus making driving itself very expensive as well? I.e. get the government out of that particular part of transportation. Would that help?

Please always keep in mind that the US government is not the only government in the entire world, that the US government has many enemies, and that those enemies have a lot of spies and espionage programs around US (including foreign satellites and monitoring outposts). If anything like what you are claiming were to be true, you would be sure to hear about it from other countries who would try to use it to demonize the US even more.

I don't think we have any restrictions on who is qualified as long as they are a legit charity.

The only reason I brought up corporations is because their purpose is specifically to increase profits, and thus market share. If I had simply said "the tendency of a capitalist business is to increase profits" I would have been wrong, since not all private business strives to increase profits or increase market share. Some are happy just where they are, since increasing profits or market share would result is more work than owners are willing to take on.
Carry on.

Ooh ooh ooh! Can I refute this on FirstAscent's behalf?

"I am not a climate scientist, and neither are you!"

How's that?

To be fair, bonker is correct that monopoly is the natural tendency of a capitalist business; especially corporations. Since the point of business and capitalism is to acquire wealth, that often also means taking over an ever increasing share of the market. What bonker is missing is the fact that it's impossible to take over 100% of the market in anything for any extended period of time, due to competition and substitution (Coke tries to get a monopoly > Pepsi provides competition AND Tropicana Orange Juice provides substitution > Coke is forced to lower prices)

So... what now?

FYI, we have BTC32.08047496 more ready to contribute at this point

Who broke up Microsoft and Internet Explorer? Government, or Chrome/Apple/switch to tablets and phones?
Who broke up Apple's near monopoly on smartphones? Government, or Google Android?
Who broke the monopoly of Kodak? Government, or digital cameras that Kodak didn't think were worth investing in?
Who broke the monopoly of IBM? Government? Or new "Personal Computers" hitting homes at a time when IBM thought only businesses had use for computers?
Even better, the government imposed monopoly of the postal service - if governments broke up monopolies, and the government is actually maintaining the USPS monopoly, you'd think it was invincible, yet...email.

In short, monopolies just don't last. Big reason for that is because they get settled in with what they know how to do best, and get killed by newer more efficient technologies they aren't able to adapt to.

Well, in that case, you can answer your own question, simply by recalling how you yourself learned it.

Already the case in 1st world governments; poor inner-city kids and country kids have crappy schools, wealthy rural area kids have very well funded high quality schools.


Ditto; free clinics, crappy insurance, and not checking issues until you have to go to the emergency room v.s. "Cadillac" insurance plans and personal healthcare concierge.


Social contracts, debts that can not be dismissed through bankruptcy (e.g. student loans), and the rest is straw man. Sure, you could buy a person in a society without government, just as you can in one with a government, but that person doesn't have to acknowledge your ownership of them, and likely no one else will, so if they leave or refuse to work for you, you're Sol. Just like it is in a society with a government.



Money is already a part of the equation in government run justice. The only difference is that this money is also used to help make unjust things legal. You can't make something unjust legal without government, so you're only left with justice and money.


That's how the legal system works now: before anything reaches a court, each person is required to go through negotiation, discovery, and be a judge and jury. Only when they fail are they allowed to take their case to court. Things like surprise evidence and witnesses that you see in the movies are extremely frowned upon. And just because you will likely get yourself shot if you found yourself in NAP society because you don't know how to behave yourself, doesn't mean everyone else will too.



There is no difference between a NAP community and your local community. If you are friendly to your neighbors and expect them to be friendly to you, if you don't steal their stuff and expect them not to steal from you, if you borrow things from them and are willing to let them borrow from you, you are already practicing NAP. If, on the other hand, you currently live in a communist country, where the government owns everything, and you have and expectation that any of your neighbors are free to walk into your house and take anything of yours, and you can do the same, because everything is community owned, then I could see where you would be confused.

Question to the OP: How do you get by day-to-day without engaging in capitalism? Do you have everything given to you by the government, or have the government dictate to you what you must obtain, where, and what you must pay for it?

Sure, but it doesn't really have to be "human's" even. Other species can learn and adapt from pain too. They just may not realize other members' wants and desires, and thus not understand that someone else might want something of theirs in exchange for something else. So, I guess pain, ability to learn, and means of communicating wants.

Re-read my post. Person A takes Person B's stuff, Person B will smack Person A, and that will teach Person A not to do it again. If Person A notices that there is something Person B wants from Person A as well, then they can both decide to trade for the things they want. It does take some brains to figure out, but ours have the capacity for it.

Just one thing: Pain.

Pain from a lack of something we need (food, water, shelter, hard labor that would be made easier with some tool) keeps us wanting to get those things.
Pain from being slapped around by some other monkey when we try to take their stuff keeps us from taking their stuff, and forces us to look for some other means of trying to acquire it.
Pain or risk of pain from trying to take their stuff by force makes us look for more painless methods of acquiring that stuff, and trading things both of us want is so far the most pain-free method we have found.


The bolded part is the part you are missing. Where did you get the idea that "we" disapprove of violence?

OP: Very interesting. Thank you for sharing that.


No one is disputing or claiming otherwise. They are just pointing out that things like language, civility, understanding of trade, and even education do not need a government to exist.

Positions in law enforcement tend to attract people with interests in power and forcing people to follow the rule of law. Oftentimes those are people with high morals, who wish to keep the peace and protect the citizens. Also, often, it's people who think they know what is best for society, and who tend to get a bit of a high from power. Once the laws get more restrictive, the power hungry enforce-the-law types tend to get more control, and push those who may have moral objections to the law out of the force. They can, because the law says they are right. In the end, you end up with a bunch of power-hungry psychopaths who believe they are doing the right thing because the law says so, even when the law itself isn't right. Besides the obvious Hitler example, there's also the rise of Soviet Union, and the modern China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia again, and pretty much every other dictatorship and faux-Democracy out there. Egyptian army putting down its weapons and refusing to fight its population  during the uprising is the only example of your claim I could think of, but even that is becoming somewhat questionable now, as the army is one of the groups contending to take power there.

I AM in business, and am talking from experience. Yes, you can lie, and be an exploitative monopoly, but you won't have customers or be a monopoly for long, since you'all be inviting competition or innovation. You can just say "fuck'em" and get out, but in that case you hopefully have made your money legitimately.

Probably not a good idea. You'll basically end up replacing people who know what the hell they are doing with people who are clueless. At least in the private sector there is an abundance of skills learned from other businesses. Since the government is a monopoly, you can't just hire a Senator from some other Senate.

We don't. They will either see the benefit of it, or they won't, but they won't be allowed to enjoy the benefits of a community otherwise. They will also get a chance to see what contributing to a community actually gets them, which is something they currently can't with the government doing everything.


Subjective morals aside, contrary to popular belief, you can't actually get very far in business while being an asshole about it. The only way to get far in the private sector is to give others something they want. You can be a total asshole and still get elected or make money in politics though (e.g. Gingrich, lobbyists, etc). As for being self centered, again, the only way you can make your own self centered life better is by trading something with someone else, be it your money, your skills, or your good/services. So even if you are narcissistic and self centered, at least you gave a lot of other people things to get that way.

Except the government is not specialized. It's a hodgepodge of bureaucracy, where everyone tries to take on as little responsibility as possible, which attracts typically the least skilled in their fields thanks to it paying the lowest salary for those skills due to tax payers and politicians wanting to "save money" instead of "get the job done."