renting out a house is armed robbery!

[notme]

But you don't have a contract with the state.

Well, the state needs to allow you to leave at any time if you have no unpaid debts.

What if they encourage everyone to take out student loans, enslaving a generation and deluding the value of their degrees?

Student loan debt can not be discharged, and unless Bitcoin makes me rich, I will have a negative net worth until I'm at least 35.

[Luther]

I have to agree with XMPPwocky. In anarcho-capitalism, somebody still has to own the infrastructure. Each network (roads, utility lines, etc.) has to be monopolized to maximize its usefulness. Therefore any owner of infrastructure is a de facto member of government.

That makes no sense at all.  The whole idea of anarcho-capitalism is that there is no government.

Hence the contradiction in anarcho-capitalism. Any time you have a natural, long-term monopoly that everyone depends on, you have a government. The monopoly owner has great power over the people. Anarchists seem to think that as long as the government isn't "official", they can just look the other way.

[Explodicle]

Sounds familiar!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_is_theft!

Before anyone lets this thread bother them too much, keep in mind that local monopolies would be extremely vulnerable without a state, and market forces will push towards greater efficiency (less monopoly abuse).
http://www.anti-state.com/geo/foldvary1.html

[Hawker]

I have to agree with XMPPwocky. In anarcho-capitalism, somebody still has to own the infrastructure. Each network (roads, utility lines, etc.) has to be monopolized to maximize its usefulness. Therefore any owner of infrastructure is a de facto member of government.

That makes no sense at all.  The whole idea of anarcho-capitalism is that there is no government.

Hence the contradiction in anarcho-capitalism. Any time you have a natural, long-term monopoly that everyone depends on, you have a government. The monopoly owner has great power over the people. Anarchists seem to think that as long as the government isn't "official", they can just look the other way.

Assuming you need a monopoly for those things to function, which is not the case.

I think the point Luther is making is that you are under the power of the person who controls the resources and you best hope they are soft hearted.  Just because there is no state does not mean there is no scope for oppression.

[XMPPwocky]

But you don't have a contract with the state.

Well, the state needs to allow you to leave at any time if you have no unpaid debts.

What if they encourage everyone to take out student loans, enslaving a generation and deluding the value of their degrees?

Student loan debt can not be discharged, and unless Bitcoin makes me rich, I will have a negative net worth until I'm at least 35.

Is it really aggression to encourage loans? If not, how does this violate the NAP?

[Luther]

Hence the contradiction in anarcho-capitalism. Any time you have a natural, long-term monopoly that everyone depends on, you have a government. The monopoly owner has great power over the people. Anarchists seem to think that as long as the government isn't "official", they can just look the other way.

Assuming you need a monopoly for those things to function, which is not the case.

Let's see, agorists have already disproven the need for copyright (free software, Wikipedia, etc.) and fiat currency (Bitcoin). I'm still waiting for them to come up with a decentralized transit system and decentralized utilities. I'd do it myself, but I have no idea how such a thing could be possible, and, AFAIK, there are no historical examples.

[MoonShadow]

My understanding is that the NAP is not compatible with a state because a state insists on a monopoly on violence and you pay taxes regardless of your opinion on on what the money is spent on.

Am I wrong?

That's correct, as the concept of a state is presently known.  However, a state that does not insist on such a monopoly on legitimate use of force is not inconceivable.  Most people don't know this, but once upon a time the United States was one such nation, and there were several (but never all) of the many states that did not insist on such a monopoly either.  Most of the Western territories (i.e. Utah, Wyoming, etc) didn't have a monopoly on force within those areas as a practical matter, and that is why (despite the relative peacefulness of the age as compared to today) history refers to this period as "The Wild West".

Following it's founding of the nation of Switzerland (of the old confederacy, circa 1291), that nation could also lay credible claim to a national government that didn't insist upon a monopoly on the use of force, as such powers rested in the 'cantons' for centuries, and as a matter of practiality, most of those cantons in turn expected the citizens and clans within to participate in the maintaince of the public order.

Even Great Britain can make some claim that their societies were not originally dependent upon a government monopoly on the use of legtimate force.  For starters, the prison known as "Old Bailey" was traditionally managed by a warden and guard force recruited from within the prison population itself; so the "criminal element" (mostly debt prisoners, really) literally policed their own during their sentences.  Also, the British had (at that time) a form of private police force, as anyone could be hired as a 'constable' (as opposed to a sheriff or his deputies) who acted much like how one would expect a private security guard/detective/thug would act.  Of couse, local governments could hire constables as well, and that is exactly how modern urban police forces 'evolved' as well as where we get the word "cop", as it's entomology of the word comes from "constable on patrol".  Where I live that legacy lives on, as while the Chief of Police (sheriff) is appointed by the mayor, there are two elected positions in each county in Kentucky called 'contables' that impose police powers upon the elected individual, but offers no salary.  In practice, the elected constable is just a businessman that runs a private security force and hires off duty or former cops to hang out in banks or hotel lobbies, or serve court summons to civil actions.

So it's not true that we don't have evidence that a state can't function within the NAP, or that a state can't co-exist with private protection services.  It's only in the modern world that most people can no longer imagine such a thing.

[XMPPwocky]

decentralized transit system

Legs and taxicabs?

[notme]

But you don't have a contract with the state.

Well, the state needs to allow you to leave at any time if you have no unpaid debts.

What if they encourage everyone to take out student loans, enslaving a generation and deluding the value of their degrees?

Student loan debt can not be discharged, and unless Bitcoin makes me rich, I will have a negative net worth until I'm at least 35.

Is it really aggression to encourage loans? If not, how does this violate the NAP?

That depends on if you count fear mongering as aggression.  We were told we would be doomed to poverty without a degree.  We were too young to know they were full of shit.  Now we are told our degrees don't mean anything because everyone has one.

Also, just to be clear, I meant diluted, not deluded .

[MoonShadow]

I'm still waiting for them to come up with a decentralized transit system and decentralized utilities. I'd do it myself, but I have no idea how such a thing could be possible, and, AFAIK, there are no historical examples.

Sure, there are historical examples of both utilites and transit systems.  If fact, historicly neither of these services were municipally owned enterprises.  In the modern world, examples of decentralized transit systems include 'jitney' cabs, Flinc (www.flinc.mobi), Avego (avego.com), Zipcar (www.zipcar.com) and RelayRides (www.relayrides.com); in addition to more obvious examples such as Greyhound (www.greyhound.com).

For that matter, the New York subway system was originally built and managed by private enterprises, but was 'nationalized' during the second world war and never given back.

As for decentralized utility services, that is really just you (or your condo association, etc) providing for itself as opposed to relying on the municipal water company or the power company to do it, but it's uncommon because the economies of scale tend to favor those municipal companies.  Even so, a local well for non-potable (i.e. toilet flushwater only) can pay for itself in no time, and there are many building in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky (where I live) that do have their own wells for that as well as for open cycle heat pumps.  I know of no private business that purifies it's own building potable water however, if only because of the liability if the filter should fail unnoticed and some old guy gets something from the water fountain that puts him in the hospital.  The municipal water service is indemnified from such events, so long as they can show that they made a 'reasonable' effort to monitor and prevent such things.

Likewise, anyone can put solar panels on their roof or buy a genset, but neither option compares to the peace and reliablility of the municipal power grid.

[SpontaneousDisorder]

The Internet is basically a utility, as is the mobile phone network. Yet as far as I'm aware they're mostly privatley owned. And much more complex than other utilities. (and much cheaper)

[Hawker]

The Internet is basically a utility, as is the mobile phone network. Yet as far as I'm aware they're mostly privatley owned. And much more complex than other utilities. (and much cheaper)

Private ownership does not mean private control.  The Internet is a government creation.  The US could destroy it if it wanted to by messing with the dns system. 

[notme]

The Internet is basically a utility, as is the mobile phone network. Yet as far as I'm aware they're mostly privatley owned. And much more complex than other utilities. (and much cheaper)

Private ownership does not mean private control.  The Internet is a government creation.  The US could destroy it if it wanted to by messing with the dns system. 

The US could temporarily inconvenience people, and make namecoin holders rich by messing with the DNS system.

[MoonShadow]

The Internet is basically a utility, as is the mobile phone network. Yet as far as I'm aware they're mostly privatley owned. And much more complex than other utilities. (and much cheaper)

Private ownership does not mean private control.  The Internet is a government creation.  The US could destroy it if it wanted to by messing with the dns system. 

1) the Internet is not a government creation

2) no one could realisticly destroy the internet by any means whatever.

And messing with DNS simply aggravates the naming system, which is a far cry from being a critical component of the network.  If the US government started to do any such thing, browser plugins that permit alternate DNS servers, or completely differant naming systems such as namecoin, would spread like wildfire.  Even if this isn't true, the DNS system mainly exists to support the "Wide world web", otherwise known as 'websites', which use the hypertext transport protocol.  HTTP isn't the Internet either, it's just one (quite popular) protocol that uses the Internet.  Bitcoin, as an example, doesn't even use DNS in any mission critical manner; so if the entire DNS system were to fall off the Internet, the bitcoin network might not even notice.  Most other Internet protocols aren't terriblely dependent upon DNS either; for example, most ftp clients can use DNS to resolve a server name, but save the IP address into it's account settings.  If your web browser does the same thing (none do, that I am aware) and DNS drops off the Internet, then you could still visit all of your bookmarked favorites and likely not notice any change.

[MoonShadow]

The Internet is basically a utility, as is the mobile phone network. Yet as far as I'm aware they're mostly privatley owned. And much more complex than other utilities. (and much cheaper)

Private ownership does not mean private control.  The Internet is a government creation.  The US could destroy it if it wanted to by messing with the dns system.  

1) the Internet is not a government creation

2) no one could realisticly destroy the internet by any means whatever.

And messing with DNS simply aggravates the naming system, which is a far cry from being a critical component of the network.  If the US government started to do any such thing, browser plugins that permit alternate DNS servers, or completely differant naming systems such as namecoin, would spread like wildfire.  Even if this isn't true, the DNS system mainly exists to support the "Wide world web", otherwise known as 'websites', which use the hypertext transport protocol.  HTTP isn't the Internet either, it's just one (quite popular) protocol that uses the Internet.  Bitcoin, as an example, doesn't even use DNS in any mission critical manner; so if the entire DNS system were to fall off the Internet, the bitcoin network might not even notice.  Most other Internet protocols aren't terriblely dependent upon DNS either; for example, most ftp clients can use DNS to resolve a server name, but save the IP address into it's account settings.  If your web browser does the same thing (none do, that I am aware) and DNS drops off the Internet, then you could still visit all of your bookmarked favorites and likely not notice any change.

You do know what ARPANET and DARPA were, don’t you MoonShadow? The rest of his post is bullshit but not that.

Yes, I do.  ARPANET was a project that received funding from DARPA, a sudo-government research agency. However, that's not the same as ARPANET was a government creation, it was not.  And ARPANET is not the Internet, either.  Difference between a primate and a human being is still more than just evolution.

[Luther]

I'm still waiting for them to come up with a decentralized transit system and decentralized utilities. I'd do it myself, but I have no idea how such a thing could be possible, and, AFAIK, there are no historical examples.

[snip] In the modern world, examples of decentralized transit systems include 'jitney' cabs, Flinc (www.flinc.mobi), Avego (avego.com), Zipcar (www.zipcar.com) and RelayRides (www.relayrides.com); in addition to more obvious examples such as Greyhound (www.greyhound.com).

These things all require roads. Roads are a centralized transit system. Also, aside from Greyhound, all these services can only move a few people at a time, making them far less energy efficient then trains and buses. They will be the first things to become infeasible when oil starts to get really scarce.

For that matter, the New York subway system was originally built and managed by private enterprises, but was 'nationalized' during the second world war and never given back.

That's still a central monopoly power. What difference does it make if it's 'nationalized'? That's exactly the kind of double standard between official government and other monopolies that I disagree with.

As for decentralized utility services, that is really just you (or your condo association, etc) providing for itself as opposed to relying on the municipal water company or the power company to do it, but it's uncommon because the economies of scale tend to favor those municipal companies.  Even so, a local well for non-potable (i.e. toilet flushwater only) can pay for itself in no time, and there are many building in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky (where I live) that do have their own wells for that as well as for open cycle heat pumps.  I know of no private business that purifies it's own building potable water however, if only because of the liability if the filter should fail unnoticed and some old guy gets something from the water fountain that puts him in the hospital.  The municipal water service is indemnified from such events, so long as they can show that they made a 'reasonable' effort to monitor and prevent such things.

Likewise, anyone can put solar panels on their roof or buy a genset, but neither option compares to the peace and reliablility of the municipal power grid.

From this description, it would seem that the pressure for efficiency would push directly toward centralization. In the long run, my point still stands.

[Hawker]

Moonshadow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#Governance

Read the whole page.  The Internet is a government creation and was made available to private enterprise in the 90s.  The US government controls ICANN and could balkanise the network if it used its power to set up parallel top level DNS.  Should that happen, the Internet as we know it would be dead and we would have to choose between flavours of network management.

[Fizzgig]

Hey Hawker, do you regularly receive money from the UK government via job or benefit? If no, then sorry I stereotyped you (is it a different government in that case?) Again, if no, I apologize.

If yes, take a cold shower and reevaluate your life. 

[Hawker]

Hey Hawker, do you regularly receive money from the UK government via job or benefit? If no, then sorry I stereotyped you (is it a different government in that case?) Again, if no, I apologize.

If yes, take a cold shower and reevaluate your life.  

I pay a lot more in tax than I can ever hope to get out of the system and I own part of a public company.

Your mistake is that you assume that if its my personal interest to shaft the poor, then that's the way I'd vote.  In most elections, you actually see the majority of taxpayers voting against their financial interests because values are way more important than money.

[Fizzgig]

No I wasn't assuming anything about the way you vote, I just find that people who receive money directly from the government tend to support the government. And people who defend the government in as emphatically as you do tend to be from the UK.

I'm just issuing a hypothesis to test my current model of prejudice!