This is the thread where you discuss free market, americans and libertarianism

[hawkeye]

Even though it's probably correct (An-Caps intuitively seem to be crazy and violent people, who kill people with guns)

Really?  Got an example of some people who have called themselves anarcho-capitalists who fit the above profile.  I can't think of any.

OTOH, I can think of the US govt, which is full of crazy and violent people and has killed thousands and destroyed the livelihoods of millions in the last decade alone.

[Anon136]

right there are definitely strong arguments to be made for why government is responsible for those deaths and why if we didnt have a government we wouldnt have had those deaths, and i personally believe this is accurate. My point was not to say that freedomequalsriches had drawn a false conclusion. I believe his conclusion was accurate. My point was to say that that particular conclusion does not follow from those particular premises alone.

However, the act of blaming governments for various atrocities also casts doubt on the theoretical viability of Anarchic alternatives. If soldiers, policemen, judges and other state workers are not individually responsible for their actions, then why should a change of system make any difference? If the population isn't already bound by the NAP, then clearly it's not all-encompassing or 'natural' like some people suggest. Besides, people need governments in order to blame them when things go horribly wrong.

right government is an idea. It is the idea that different people are entitled to different sets of rights. When i say "government was responsible" i really just mean that without the prevalence of this idea said people wouldn't have died.

[myrkul]

Both of you guys seem desperate to avoid any serious discussion of what supports markets, as that might lead to a scary conclusion that you probably won't like: some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets.

Not at all. What supports markets? What creates the conditions suitable for their existence?

Still waiting.

[myrkul]

Both of you guys seem desperate to avoid any serious discussion of what supports markets, as that might lead to a scary conclusion that you probably won't like: some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets.

Not at all. What supports markets? What creates the conditions suitable for their existence?

Still waiting.

I already gave you the answer earlier.

Well, seeing as I missed it, could you quote it?

[myrkul]

Both of you guys seem desperate to avoid any serious discussion of what supports markets, as that might lead to a scary conclusion that you probably won't like: some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets.

Not at all. What supports markets? What creates the conditions suitable for their existence?

Still waiting.

I already gave you the answer earlier.

Well, seeing as I missed it, could you quote it?

WHYYY??!?

That's not the proof. That's the claim. You can't point to your conclusion to support your conclusion.

You missed this bit as well:

If you want to propose a different answer, you're welcome to back it up with an analysis from first principles, seeing as we'd have to try and imagine how this theoretical government-free world might work.

I'm waiting for you to make your case, first. Seems impolite to totally destroy your arguments, before you even have a chance to make them.

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

Both of you guys seem desperate to avoid any serious discussion of what supports markets, as that might lead to a scary conclusion that you probably won't like: some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets.

Not at all. What supports markets? What creates the conditions suitable for their existence?

Still waiting.

I already gave you the answer earlier.

Well, seeing as I missed it, could you quote it?

WHYYY??!?

You missed this bit as well:

If you want to propose a different answer, you're welcome to back it up with an analysis from first principles, seeing as we'd have to try and imagine how this theoretical government-free world might work.

Markets existed in Irerland when it had no state, and in Iceland, when it had free-market law.  so your premise that "some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets." has already been dis-proven by history.  Next?

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

right there are definitely strong arguments to be made for why government is responsible for those deaths and why if we didnt have a government we wouldnt have had those deaths, and i personally believe this is accurate. My point was not to say that freedomequalsriches had drawn a false conclusion. I believe his conclusion was accurate. My point was to say that that particular conclusion does not follow from those particular premises alone.

However, the act of blaming governments for various atrocities also casts doubt on the theoretical viability of Anarchic alternatives. If soldiers, policemen, judges and other state workers are not individually responsible for their actions, then why should a change of system make any difference? If the population isn't already bound by the NAP, then clearly it's not all-encompassing or 'natural' like some people suggest. Besides, people need governments in order to blame them when things go horribly wrong.

The act of blaming governments for their acts casts doubt on <whatever>
OK.

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

Both of you guys seem desperate to avoid any serious discussion of what supports markets, as that might lead to a scary conclusion that you probably won't like: some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets.

Not at all. What supports markets? What creates the conditions suitable for their existence?

Still waiting.

I already gave you the answer earlier.

Well, seeing as I missed it, could you quote it?

WHYYY??!?

That's not the proof. That's the claim. You can't point to your conclusion to support your conclusion.

You missed this bit as well:

If you want to propose a different answer, you're welcome to back it up with an analysis from first principles, seeing as we'd have to try and imagine how this theoretical government-free world might work.

I'm waiting for you to make your case, first. Seems impolite to totally destroy your arguments, before you even have a chance to make them.

Sure, I'll play your game...

some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets

BECAUSE...
In order for people to trade, first they need to be able to communicate with each other.
In order to be able to communicate, they need to learn to communicate.
Somebody needs to supply those skills. For example, parents teach their children basic skills.
However, is that a market? No, it is not. Call it evolutionary programming or whatever -- it's NOT A MARKET.
Even if you claim that markets only require 'supply' and 'demand', and participants, those participants still need to be able to follow the established rules. What rules, you ask? Whatever rules are created as a result of the participants communicating with each other prior to the market being able to function. Example of rules: "no stealing" or "follow the N.A.P. or die".
You may find this line of reasoning somewhat troubling, even disturbing. That would be because it suggests that markets rely on certain things (for example: 'communication', as I just explained) that they themselves are unable to provide in isolation from the outside world.
As such, the outside world therefore has to somehow "support" markets in a non-market fashion. For example: a leader might make a set of rules and force people to follow them. Eventually, lots of other people start forcing or 'indoctrinating' their own families and community into following the same rules, and these rules become known as a "language".

Again:
Markets existed in Ireland when it had no state, and in Iceland, when it had free-market law.  Your premise that "some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets." has already been dis-proven by history.  Next?

[myrkul]

some non-voluntary monopoly (e.g.: a government) might be necessary in order to create suitable conditions for markets

BECAUSE...
In order for people to trade, first they need to be able to communicate with each other.
In order to be able to communicate, they need to learn to communicate.
Somebody needs to supply those skills. For example, parents teach their children basic skills.
However, is that a market? No, it is not. Call it evolutionary programming or whatever -- it's NOT A MARKET.
Even if you claim that markets only require 'supply' and 'demand', and participants, those participants still need to be able to follow the established rules. What rules, you ask? Whatever rules are created as a result of the participants communicating with each other prior to the market being able to function.

OK, so, because parents need to teach their children how to communicate in order for those children - once grown - to establish a market, therefore we need a monopoly government. Suuuuure....

Certainly communication is required, but not a State. For instance, take two traders who do not share a language. They can (and have in the past) create a shared language, in order to facilitate trade. No State (or even parents) required.

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

The act of blaming governments for their acts casts doubt on <whatever>
OK.

It's not the policeman's/soldier's/civil servant's fault for <whatever>, it's their imaginary friend's fault???
OK.

OK, it wasn't Hitler's fault, it was the guy putting the Zyklon B pucks on the burner.  It wasn't Stalin's fault, it was the guys who confiscated the grain.  When someone gets the death penalty, it's the tech giving the lethal injection, not the judge. If I punch someone, it's my hand's fault, or actually, just those parts of my fist that actually make contact with my opponent.

[ktttn]

You think markets can be bought and sold, and markets of markets, ad infinatum?  Idiot.

I might hesitate to brand someone an idiot for seeing fractals. 10thdim on youtube http://m.youtube.com/#/user/10thdim?&desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2F10thdim has a lot of really solid ideas that put a limit on that ad infinitum. For example, a state facilitated market, containing markets and submarkets, requires a market to run, itself- a coerced taxbase, and a market to support that- third world slave labor.. and so on.
I am not an anarchocapitalist. I am an anarchist. Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.
A market is what the macrocosm and the microcosm do. When a force presuming to micromanage and manipulate it uses coersion to delete agency and circumvents consent with violence, you get... well.. you get it. Right? Wall st.

[ktttn]

The act of blaming governments for their acts casts doubt on <whatever>
OK.

It's not the policeman's/soldier's/civil servant's fault for <whatever>, it's their imaginary friend's fault???
OK.

Youre making a clever, shrewd and damning point here. The person doing the dirty work is doing dirty work- but not his own dirty work, but the state's.
It is a function of a state to manipulate people into doing evil things.
Doesn't shift the blame, of course, but it does tell us about how these things work.

[myrkul]

Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.

Define "unfounded."

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

You think markets can be bought and sold, and markets of markets, ad infinatum?  Idiot.

I might hesitate to brand someone an idiot for seeing fractals. 10thdim on youtube http://m.youtube.com/#/user/10thdim?&desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2F10thdim has a lot of really solid ideas that put a limit on that ad infinitum. For example, a state facilitated market, containing markets and submarkets, requires a market to run, itself- a coerced taxbase, and a market to support that- third world slave labor.. and so on.
I am not an anarchocapitalist. I am an anarchist. Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.
A market is what the macrocosm and the microcosm do. When a force presuming to micromanage and manipulate it uses coersion to delete agency and circumvents consent with violence, you get... well.. you get it. Right? Wall st.

Many problems with Wall St. arise from the fact that they use the medium of exchange as a commodity, as if it had inherent value in and of itself.  I think I see what you're getting at, though:
I find a copper deposit on un-owned land in Africa, and I hire locals to exploit it, but what effect on the agrarian or hunter gatherers nearby?
Is this the gist of your assertion?

[ktttn]

Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.

Define "unfounded."

I'll give some examples. Grain rotting in a silo. A field left unplowed. A castle waiting for a soon-to-return-noble in the crusades. A locked dumpster. These are examples of wasted property needlessly accumulated and consolidated for the supposed purpose of private wealth to the detriment of public good. Proudhon is pretty cool.
We could also go into the idea of stocks in things that involved anything from fraud to genogide to obtain, like the entire US. We can also think of unfounded as unfair or unjust.
Now the real crazy part comes in during a consideration of wage slavery, human beings and other animals as property, and labor as a commodity.

[myrkul]

Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.

Define "unfounded."

I'll give some examples. Grain rotting in a silo. A field left unplowed. A castle waiting for a soon-to-return-noble in the crusades. A locked dumpster. These are examples of wasted property needlessly accumulated and consolidated for the supposed purpose of private wealth to the detriment of public good. Proudhon is pretty cool.

That does not define "unfounded."
Plus, some are very poor examples of waste.
The castle is like saying "an empty home waiting for it's owner to come home from work," and fields sometimes need to be left unplowed to recover nutrients.

[kokjo]

Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.

Define "unfounded."

I'll give some examples. Grain rotting in a silo. A field left unplowed. A castle waiting for a soon-to-return-noble in the crusades. A locked dumpster. These are examples of wasted property needlessly accumulated and consolidated for the supposed purpose of private wealth to the detriment of public good. Proudhon is pretty cool.
We could also go into the idea of stocks in things that involved anything from fraud to genogide to obtain, like the entire US. We can also think of unfounded as unfair or unjust.
Now the real crazy part comes in during a consideration of wage slavery, human beings and other animals as property, and labor as a commodity.

all this will be irrelevant if we remove the right to own stuff, the very foundation of any capitalistic society.

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.

Define "unfounded."

I'll give some examples. Grain rotting in a silo. A field left unplowed. A castle waiting for a soon-to-return-noble in the crusades. A locked dumpster. These are examples of wasted property needlessly accumulated and consolidated for the supposed purpose of private wealth to the detriment of public good. Proudhon is pretty cool.
We could also go into the idea of stocks in things that involved anything from fraud to genogide to obtain, like the entire US. We can also think of unfounded as unfair or unjust.
Now the real crazy part comes in during a consideration of wage slavery, human beings and other animals as property, and labor as a commodity.

That's not a very anarchist thing to say.
Hypothetical situation A:
I grow grain and sell it to a foreign customer.  A drought causes starvation in my local area, but my techniques of farming render me immune, and the foreign buyer has contractual rights to the next 6 months of my output.  the locals are starving, and try to take my grain, and I kill many in self-defense as they storm my grain silos.  Am I a criminal?
Hypothetical situation B:
I have full silos of grain, and I choose to let it rot, and the locals are starving, and I kill many when they storm my silos.  Does that make me a criminal?

[FreedomEqualsRiches]

Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.

Define "unfounded."

I'll give some examples. Grain rotting in a silo. A field left unplowed. A castle waiting for a soon-to-return-noble in the crusades. A locked dumpster. These are examples of wasted property needlessly accumulated and consolidated for the supposed purpose of private wealth to the detriment of public good. Proudhon is pretty cool.
We could also go into the idea of stocks in things that involved anything from fraud to genogide to obtain, like the entire US. We can also think of unfounded as unfair or unjust.
Now the real crazy part comes in during a consideration of wage slavery, human beings and other animals as property, and labor as a commodity.

all this will be irrelevant if we remove the right to own stuff, the very foundation of any capitalistic society.

Where do you live, I could use all your stuff.  And, according to me, my need is greater than yours, after all, you don't mind mugging old ladies at night for their money, and I do.

[ktttn]

You think markets can be bought and sold, and markets of markets, ad infinatum?  Idiot.

I might hesitate to brand someone an idiot for seeing fractals. 10thdim on youtube http://m.youtube.com/#/user/10thdim?&desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2F10thdim has a lot of really solid ideas that put a limit on that ad infinitum. For example, a state facilitated market, containing markets and submarkets, requires a market to run, itself- a coerced taxbase, and a market to support that- third world slave labor.. and so on.
I am not an anarchocapitalist. I am an anarchist. Capitalism requires unfounded remote ownership a la Property is Theft.
A market is what the macrocosm and the microcosm do. When a force presuming to micromanage and manipulate it uses coersion to delete agency and circumvents consent with violence, you get... well.. you get it. Right? Wall st.

Many problems with Wall St. arise from the fact that they use the medium of exchange as a commodity, as if it had inherent value in and of itself.  I think I see what you're getting at, though:
I find a copper deposit on un-owned land in Africa, and I hire locals to exploit it, but what effect on the agrarian or hunter gatherers nearby?
Is this the gist of your assertion?

The medium of exchange would rightly be a commodity if it were bitcoin, or at very least something remotely sane.
Theyre trading in debt fiat. Literally a whole different sort of way worse than any slimy trash either of us can name. I disagree with your assertion that the source of any of wall st's problems is using X means of exchange as a commodity. The inner manipulations fiat iself are to blame, along with a host of problems too numerous to exhaustively point to involving fraud and so on.
If you hire locals to exploit the unowned land they own, youre exploiting locals. Which is buisiness as usual in Africa.