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Stavros, your comment about how people are derided by those out of power (in this case libertarians) is spot on: the people know exactly what is in their best interests, as described by de Tocqueville, or ?Tytler, or whomsoever you say said the quote above. As I said previously, what is characterised as the selflessness of the social democratic model is in fact large numbers of people voting to line their own pockets at the expense of others.
PS, Stavros, I've got no idea what your final paragraph about the Bilderbergs etc. has to do with libertarians or Randians. We pejoratively call transnationalist progressives "tranzis", as you may be aware, but most of us don't say there's anything about conspiratorial about their behaviour, they're pretty open about their agenda for those with eyes to see, and one need only listen to their denunciation of their opponents to have that confirmed.
trish, you haven't understood the gravamen of my observations or of the questions arising from them.
hipifred, "Sure I have. But that's a corporate power play & has nothing to do with your lame quote. Just like everybody else, they were doing ok until the bank panic stopped up revenue streams. Now the same semi-anonymous money changers who created the artificial panic, & hold vast amounts of bonds, are demanding full payments they know can't be made because of their shenanigans. Austerity programs are just a ploy to lower wages, & have never been a benefit to anyone except debt holders who end up taking real property in lieu of shuffled numbers. Talk about coercion... "
You need to have a word to Stavros about conspiracies. You also need to learn to write coherently, deploying sentences that mean something.
Back in the real world, the PIIGS governments like, but mostly to a greater extent than, other countries in the West, have been spending money they don't have. They've been behaving like drunken sailors for years, and now they've run out of money. That's not some artificial situation, it's reality catching up with them. And the EU is busy installing bureaucratic regimes in the capital cities of these countries with the power to override the the decision-making of their democratically elected governments. Loose fiscal policy is leading to dictatorship. And given the recent history of most of these countries, the odds are high that they, or some of them, will collapse into old style military dictatorship.
Odelay, could somebody else have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, had Michelangelo never existed? Would somebody else have composed the Brandenburg Concertos, ditto Bach?
Rand's point in Atlas Shrugged is that if productive, initiative-taking genii of society go on strike, and all we're left with is the mediocre, then we will all suffer as a result.
The former can get by just fine without the latter, but vice-versa? Maybe we'll find out one day...
Gravamen? There is no seriousness to your complaints whatsoever. You claim that
Really? All State actions, absolutely all, are coercive? Sending assistance to the storm swept east coast is coercive? The decision not to fund the superconducting supercollider was coercive? The decision to launch and land Curiosity on Mars was coercive? The decision to make Pell Grants available to university students is coercive? Oh we could debate various senses of word “coerce.” A broad interpretation would hold that every person who acts to claim and protect their private property is being coercive, threatening to use physical force to keep what they claim is theirs and theirs alone. We’ve all seen children who behave that way. A narrower and more commonly held interpretation would hold that there are indeed State actions which are not coercive.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
When I spoke about Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s proof of the instability of free markets and the need for a regulator you posted ->
Do I want to control you? No. It’s absurd of you to say so. I don’t even know you. I don’t care if you drop dead while composing your next post. I don’t want to control you at all. Not for your own good and most of all, I don’t want to be bothered with the task of controlling you. I wasn’t even talking about me or you, I was speaking about free market economies. I asserted that unregulated free market economies deteriorate into markets controlled by one, two, three, a handful of powerful players.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
If you exercised some self control and rebutted honest points of view instead of straw men, we might see your gravamen.
You may not be aware of it, but we have a resident libertarian/anarcho-capitalist who rails against the secretive networks of power exercised by the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, and all the usual suspects joined to the hip of the Beast. Her work is here, enjoy!Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=63803
Ahh but we won't be left with the mediocre. The market makes sure of that. Unfilled demand is the same as the vacuum that the universe abhors, it will be filled. And demand can be for quality as well as quantity. Your point about Michaelangelo is silly because it's an unprovable counterfactual. My guess is that Michaelangelo was a pretty good marketer. There very well might have been an equal talent who wasn't quite as business savvy. Suffice it to say, he won the contract. Had he not existed, another would have won the contract and his name would be praised today.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
I rather enjoy the comedy of all the JD Salinger fans who mourn the fact that he went into hiding, withdrawing his talent from the world. The literary world did not suffer as Vonnegut, Updike, Bellow, Oates, Vidal and many others rose up to take his place. And that goes for any withdrawn genius from Bobby Fischer to Greta Garbo. The market rules, not any one or group of individuals.
As for coercion, I'm guessing that living as a peasant in the feudalistic middle ages felt pretty coercive, or just below the mercantile class during the Renaissance, or as a debtor in merry olde england of the 1800's. I'm a liberal, so I don't usually buy into the whole American exceptionalism rah rah bullshit. But I will say I'm grateful to live in America today, even under this awful oppressive Obama regime.
Michaelangelo (da Vinci and all the other Renaissance artists) had a whole factory of apprentices and assistants. Art historians often cannot tell the hand of the master from the apprentice. But surely if Papa John withdraws his exquisite pie making talent from the market, we will all suffer a sad gastronomic loss.
"If you exercised some self control and rebutted honest points of view instead of straw men, we might see your gravamen."
I rather doubt it.
No I wasn't aware of your in-house anarcho-capitalist, Stavros. I shall certainly read her (?) work, as you suggest.
I assume you were trying to bait her out of her quietitude on this thread.
If she is as you've characterised her, I'd say she is in that sense unusual for a libertarian.
Well, I agree that you can't buck the market (as the Thatcherites used to say), Odelay, but I don't think that's quite what you and I are describing, although I think you have identified the key point about quality/quantity, and you're right, my example is counterfactual, necessarily so. Did the literary world suffer from an absence of Salinger? There I think you perform sleight of-hand: is the provision of fine alternatives a replacement for the particular talent (assuming Salinger would've gone on to write other worthwhile novels...there's a good episode of Frasier dealing with just this sort of theme)? and did the fine alternatives emerge because of the absence of Salinger? it's not the same as the provision and distribution of petrol to motorists, nor even the replacement of petrol with fuel cells, which is kind of why I shied away from posing my examples with characters such as Steve Jobs or Elon Musk (yes, I'm aware neither has anything to do with petrol (gasoline), not sure about fuel cells, but I'm sure you take my point), and chose more extreme examples of transcendental genius. And that's pretty much Rand's approach, as you and many others have pointed out: she takes extreme cases and uses them to make a point.
In short, this is indeed all counterfactual, and we can't know until it happens, but my guess, which is all it is, is that a world of the permanently mediocre will not be as well provided for, and will not progress as far, as fast as a world of the mediocre and the talented/driven.
Set against that, it may be that in a world where the talented and driven have Gone Galt, the feckless and mediocre find themselves obliged to try harder, to achieve more...which may be part of your point. Whether they can or not, is part of Rand's.
Odelay, "As for coercion, I'm guessing that living as a peasant in the feudalistic middle ages felt pretty coercive, or just below the mercantile class during the Renaissance, or as a debtor in merry olde england of the 1800's. I'm a liberal, so I don't usually buy into the whole American exceptionalism rah rah bullshit. But I will say I'm grateful to live in America today, even under this awful oppressive Obama regime. "
Your average mediaeval monarch didn't have a fraction of the power and reach of a modern government, in terms of micro-management. Whilst it was certainly true that if you ended up on the wrong side of a mediaeval monarch you might well find yourself on the receiving end of a red hot poker (yes indeed), or being torn in two tied to two maddening horses, the reality for most people was that they led miserable lives untouched by government except perhaps in the crucial sense that their destinies were determined by status (not contract), and this was basically determined by the government. But if the modern era is (was) defined by a movement from status to contract, we are now moving in the opposite direction once more, with the government determining our due in life with reference to our deemed memberships of certain identity or client groups.
It's difficult to be sure, but by some measures, the tax take of mediaeval monarchs was a tiny, tiny percentage of the modern social democratic state's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
I have no intention of baiting anyone, it was a simple piece of information, and I will let you split hairs on the meaning of libertarian, anarchist, anarcho-capitalist, etc as much as you like.
Having told us in an earlier post of your disdain for history it seems odd that you should rely on it to make this claim. It is, quite simply, rubbish as the varying tax rate on farmers when most people worked on the land could rise as high as 25% and in any case, though I don't suppose you have heard of Wat Tyler, or Jack Straw (no, not him), there was a 'Peasant's Revolt' in medieval England in 1381 at a time when people in England were serfs, as in, 'not free'. You may or may not have heard of the 'Poll Tax' (no, not Maggie's). Serfdom was not abolished until 1550, not long before the birth of William Shakespeare, a poet and playwright (b1564). You might also want to find out what a market town was and why it was an innovation in the development of capitalism. And the the British government does not micro-manage my life.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
Peasants' Revolt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Of course the British government micro-manages your life, Stavros. It, on behalf of the European Union, tells you which light bulbs you may use. That same government takes varying degrees of interest in what you ingest, and will not allow you to arm yourself against potential threats, unless they are so immediate that the chances of you having a weapon to hand are as near to zero as makes no difference. You may not be aware of it, but regulation governs most things most people do most of the time, from the composition of the oven gloves used to remove food from the oven to precise location and type of boiler used to heat your home.
Nothing I've said on this thread implies a disdain for history. I assume in making that claim you're referring to my dismissal of your inside history of the PLO, Fatah and so forth. But my impression is you're smart enough to appreciate that I took issue not with the history but with your assertion that that history justified your claim that murder was a "political act". You can do better.
Oh, and the British government's current tax take is about double what it was in Wat Tyler's time, if we take your figure of 25% to be correct.
Admitting then to the straw man style of argument, I see.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
Does this post display the gravamen of your perspective?
You want to argue against government and democracy in particular and you support your view with complaints about taxes and a quote, probably by neither Tytler nor de Tocqueville. Tytler and de Tocqueville? Wake up, it’s the twenty first century. In a few short pages you are reduced to making an argument by authority and you can’t even name the authority. But hey, I believe you. You don’t like to pay your taxes. You really really don’t like to pay them. The only reason you do (if you do) is because of the threat of penalty. Okay, you’re coerced. The rest of us, not so much.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
There is a difference betwee micro-managing an individual's life, and responding to accidents and diseases by introducing regulations which, for example, do not allow shops or restaurants to sell food to customers that has not been kept in hygienic conditions; in such cases the legislation that covers it is designed to remove threats to health, and if you think that is being over-protective then you can always campaign to reverse the law just as you can (and maybe do) campaign against the UK's continuing membership of the European Union. Even in today's paper there is an article about the illness caused in one of Raymond Blanc's restaurants where the issue is one of culinary standards versus health as the report states:Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
Blanc Brasseries will now pay £3,103 in costs and have confirmed they will comply with the order, as a spokeswoman said they were unable to cook the liver to council standards without compromising on taste.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...poisoning.html
Is that micro-management, or the law coming down on the side of health protection? Perhaps you think freedom must allow someone to eat food knowing that it carries a fatal risk, as long as the restaurant points this out to the customer? But is it in the interests of any restaurant to murder its customers?
On the history, I was not making an assertion that history 'justified' the actions of any member of the PLO, I was suggesting that history can explain it, which is not the same thing. If you choose to disregard the ideological imperatives of Palestinian guerilla groups in the 1970s as if it had no meaning, that is your choice, I am not suggesting that the Palestinian cause was 'just' and I have condemned the murders in Munich anyway; but reducing an act of murder to an act of murder alone, which does not exist in many laws (which take context into consideration) removes the political objective of the Palestinian 'struggle' as it was in the 1970s, and thus erases the context in which it happened, just as the violence of the Peasant's Revolt can have no attachment to freedom from your point of view, because it was merely violence. The context, in which men were not free, is presumably irrelevant.
The figure I gave of 25% is obviously not exact, to determine the taxes paid in Medieval England you would need to first consider the fact that serfdom itself is an economic/moral tax of 100% on life, that in addition there were numerous taxes, such as the wool tax, and taxes on other commodities that any time might mean the peasant was effectively living on productive land and destitute at the same time, because he owned none of it, but was still required to pay taxes, or tithes, and also present himself and his sons for the military adventures dreamed up by the local baron or the King. To compare the rate of taxation in the 14th century to what we pay today is meaningless without the context. You might as well claim we have not been free since the days when we wiped woad on our skins and lived in caves, because there were no taxes.
Stavros, you seem to have moved from an outright denial that such micro-management exists to the claim that it's okay because it's justified by the precautionary principle. Which is the usual justification for such interference. I've read the story to which you link. The restaurant in question was presumably already regulated, so the story is not exactly a poster child for the efficacity of regulation. Of course the same might be said had there been a free market in this restaurant's products (which is arguably irrelevant under the circumstances): as you say, and as I have already said on this thread, its self interest lies in best-serving its customers, giving them the best food it can without poisoning them. Given the nature of the product, in a free market, it might have explicitly warned customers that making the food taste as good as possible in some cases ran the risk of food poisoning, and customers could make their choice as they saw fit. Few would, I imagine take up the offer, but at least it would be there. Now, in one tiny way, to add to all the other tiny ways in which regulation stifles our lives, customers at this restaurant have had that choice removed from them. Nanny knows best. Apparently that proposition doesn't bother you. But I consider myself an adult, and I can make my own decisions about what suits me.
None of this dispensation existed under mediaeval monarchs, whose bureaucracies, whose ability to gather information and act on it, were minute and trivial compared to those of today.
I agree that serfdom was a moral and economic fact of life, but then so is the fact that we work for the government for about half the year (more or less, depending where you live). The distinction is one of like, not one of kind. You refer to the fact that under feudalism, property was (usually) held on sufferance. I would argue that nowadays the concept of property in the western world has been so debased by the terms on which it is held - that boiler you aren't allowed to decide where to locate, for instance, as to be meaningless. Eminent domain, in the US, is another example. Granted, life in the mediaeval era was nastier, more brutish and shorter than it is now, but then again the intervening period of the industrial revolution, as well as medical advances reducing child mortality rates, explain that difference.
As to comparing rates of taxation then and now, you say that "To compare the rate of taxation in the 14th century to what we pay today is meaningless without the context." But that makes my point for me: the context then was of a stunted government which, outside the ambit of the feudal settlement into which most people were born, had no impact on how they lit their mud hits, or where they located their fires within those mud huts, etc. The context now, by contrast, is of a much greater tax take which contributes to funding the micro-management of precisely those things (or their modern equivalent). We are better off, but in many respects less free. And we can be conscripted for military service.
Btw, who's this "William Shakespeare, a poet and playwright" of whom you speak?
What would happen should a genius withdraw his work from the world:
Einstein is celebrated for his special and general theories of relativity. The special theory, published in 1905, rectified an inconsistency thought to reside within Maxwell’s theory of electrodynamics, published in 1861. Up until 1861 is was thought that all the laws of physics should be invariant under Galilean transformations (i.e. that the laws are the same for any two observers in uniform motion relative to an inertial frame of reference). Maxwell’s equations however are not symmetric with respect to Galilean transformations, indeed they predict the constancy of the speed of light from one inertial frame to another. Lorentz worked on this problem from 1892 to 1904, though it was Poincare who noticed that buried in Lorentz’s attempts to come to terms with Maxwell there was an amazing symmetry in Maxwell’s theory: the Maxwell equations are invariant under Lorentz transformations. It was Poincare who first questioned the classical notions of simultaneity, the existence of ether and gave voice to his suspicion that the classical theory of relativity may have to be modified; i.e. that the laws of physics should display a general covariance (or symmetry) with respect to a set of transformations, but that class of transformations may not be Galilean. It was Einstein in 1905 who put two and two together and made the celebrated claim that the laws of physics must be invariant under Lorentz transformations. A great number of troubling conflicts were resolved. Einstein is celebrated for his bravery because a great number of common sense notions (consequences of our everyday familiarity with the Galilean way of thinking) had to be abandoned or revised; i.e. because physics is symmetric with respect to Lorentz transformations rather than Galilean transformations length contracts, time dilates and energy adds to mass with uniform motion. No doubt Einstein was a genius, but did it take a genius to invent special relativity in 1905. Most historians of science and most scientists think not. The theory was ripe for the picking. If not Einstein, then Lorentz, or Poincare, or Weyl or Hilbert would have found it.
But the special theory had its own special troubles. It was unclear just what made one frame of reference inertial another not. Clearly there was a more general symmetry__a bigger broader set of transformations under which the laws of physics were covariant__a more general symmetry which included the Lorentz symmetry as a special case__there had to be a general theory of relativity. Einstein worked on the general theory for more than a decade, publishing a number of false starts and retracting them. In 1915 Einstein gave some lectures in Gottingen on his work in progress. David Hilbert was in attendance. Einstein explained his problem. Einstein conjecture the laws of physics are covariant under all diffeomorphisms of spacetime, but if that were so gravitational forces would have to be reducible (at least locally) to the fictitious inertial forces associated with accelerated frames of reference. The problem then is to write down a set of field equations that connect metric of spacetime to the distribution of matter and energy within. Hilbert thought about it a few months later and wrote down the equations which we now call the Einstein field equations. Einstein published them first, but Hilbert’s derivation of them is not only original but entirely unique. So had Einstein not discovered general relativity, Hilbert certainly would have.
Einstein was also one of the early founders of quantum mechanics. His published his quantum interpretation of the photoelectric effect in 1905, the same year he published his special theory of relativity. But quantum mechanics defied Einstein’s classical grasp of physical theory. He wrestled with it’s dualities and argued with it’s proponents. Even though Einstein lived and worked into old age he effectively withdrew from work on quantum theory. As a critic he is partly responsible for inventing EPR paradox, but his “realist” interpretation failed. The effective withdrawal of his genius from the field did nothing to slow the growth of quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics, quantum chromodynamics etc. etc.
Nice post, Trish. Enjoyed the historical perspective on physics evolution and it's theoreticians.
Actually, I'm enjoying all the posts in this thread. And although I find myself mostly on the opposite side of an8150's views of social democracy, I do find his/her arguments to be well stated, and he/she doesn't resort to the worst rhetorical gimmicks such as constantly moving the goalposts.
It's much easier to agree to disagree with someone who doesn't approach debate from a position of disrespect of one's opponent, and who is willing to concede a point or two on occasion.
An8150,Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
What you say about the restaurant's incentives is a gross simplification and not I think consistent with reality. A restaurant is incentivized to make as much money as possible without subjecting itself to a lawsuit. This does not necessarily lead to the safest product possible, but the largest bottom line. As a result, a restaurant will think about the cost of taking certain precautions, the likelihood that lax food safety practices will result in food poisoning, the likelihood that if someone suffers food poisoning it's traced back to them, and the ensuing harm to their business as a result. People tend to undervalue those risks that result in longer term (and uncertain) harm and over-value the front-loaded benefits that would result from saving money based on an absence of safety requirements.
They might also be emboldened by the fact that there is nobody to detect lax food sanitation practices. Food sanitation is related to but not the same as food safety. For instance, perfectly harmless components, such as ground-up insects and rodent hairs make it into our food supply everyday. People may not get sick from such adulteration but it is unsavory.
A restaurant would have very little incentive to keep out such filth since these non-pathogenic contaminants would probably go unnoticed by the average consumer. You might argue that eating cockroaches is okay as long as you don't get sick or don't know about it....in which case I'd love to hear the argument.
By not encouraging compliance with regulatory standards and not managing the processes by which safety is maintained you tempt fate. Bad food sanitation leads to unsafe food in the long run. It also does not help if the detection comes too late and a restauranteur is insolvent.
Anyhow, by allowing the market to self-regulate you are promoting a policy that is reactive rather than proactive. When it comes to public health and disease transmission this is particularly dangerous. It is cavalier to leave food safety to individual proprietor's estimations as to how many potential patrons they'd alienate per case of E. Coli.
broncofan, "What you say about the restaurant's incentives is a gross simplification and not I think consistent with reality. A restaurant is incentivized to make as much money as possible without subjecting itself to a lawsuit [correct, and the question for it, as for any business, is whether it seeks to maximise its revenue in the short-term come what may, or build goodwill over the longer term even at the expense of short-term gain; a restaurannt such as Raymond Blanc's would easily survive the fallout from the story to which Stavros links, because Blanc has a 35 or so year global reputation; a start-up would be less fortunate]. This does not necessarily lead to the safest product possible [careful, the safest product is not necessarily the best product, the best product is in the eye of the beholder], but the largest bottom line. As a result, a restaurant will think about the cost of taking certain precautions, the likelihood that lax food safety practices will result in food poisoning, the likelihood that if someone suffers food poisoning it's traced back to them, and the ensuing harm to their business as a result. People tend to undervalue those risks that result in longer term (and uncertain) harm and over-value the front-loaded benefits that would result from saving money based on an absence of safety requirements [and those are the restaurants, in a free market, most likely to fail, because they do not appreciate that goodwill comprises a million tiny things that can see you through bad publicity or a recession; I'm all in favour of failure, just as I love to see success].
They might also be emboldened by the fact that there is nobody to detect lax food sanitation practices. Food sanitation is related to but not the same as food safety. For instance, perfectly harmless components, such as ground-up insects and rodent hairs make it into our food supply everyday. People may not get sick from such adulteration but it is unsavory.
A restaurant would have very little incentive to keep out such filth since these non-pathogenic contaminants would probably go unnoticed by the average consumer. You might argue that eating cockroaches is okay as long as you don't get sick or don't know about it....in which case I'd love to hear the argument. [well now! what if I told you that I happened to know that food eaten by you in 50 of the restaurants you've eaten in in the last three years contained traces both of human faecal matter and ground-up insects? Humour me, set aside the fact that we don't know each other. The point is, I may even be right, and neither of us in fact will ever know. Plenty of things are unsavoury. The unclean hand you have to shake. The door handle used by 5,000 other people today. The bus seat formerly occupied by more urine-stained rough sleepers than you can shake a stick at. Even if such things, including unsavoury food in a restaurant, could be prevented by regulation and the precautionary principle (and currently they cannot, they are merely disincentivised) the only point would be a technical one, namely that we would be protected from something unsavoury that we didn't know about. Now, I don't dispute that any industry will have its sharp practitioners. I don't even say that in a free market the market will always find them out, although I think consumers applying their own self-interest to, say, restaurants, will probably do a better job than bureaucrats because the range of information and experiences available to the generality of, say, a restaurant's customers is fuller than that available to food safety bureaucrats, but I do say that the exercise in rational self-interest by a restaurant owner is certainly complex, but less cynically so than you've described. Many people, after all, take pride in their work. In the Raymond Blanc restaurant story, one of the striking aspects is that the restaurant, rather than supply the food as required by the food standards bureaucrats, has withdrawn it from sale because, served as required by the food standards bureaucrats, in the view of the restaurant's owners it's not tasty. In a sense, they are unrepentant, rather joyously so. In any event, is the prevention of that which is unsavoury now part of the remit of the precautionary principle? because if so, micro-regulation is going to get a lot more restrictive].
By not encouraging compliance with regulatory standards and not managing the processes by which safety is maintained you tempt fate [in fact regulation often encourages a "race to the bottom" among providers, because compliance with the basic legal requirement locks out new competitors and, after all, if you can say 'government approved' without doing any more, where is the incentive to do any better?]. Bad food sanitation leads to unsafe food in the long run. It also does not help if the detection comes too late and a restauranteur is insolvent [that's at least no more or less likely than with self-regulation in a free market].
Anyhow, by allowing the market to self-regulate you are promoting a policy that is reactive rather than proactive [it's pro-active in the sense I've described above, re. goodwill and the range of information available to customers, it's just that there are no official records, under that scenario, of how it's pro-active]. When it comes to public health and disease transmission this is particularly dangerous. It is cavalier to leave food safety to individual proprietor's estimations as to how many potential patrons they'd alienate per case of E. Coli."
[QUOTE=an8150;1235916]
Stavros, you seem to have moved from an outright denial that such micro-management exists to the claim that it's okay because it's justified by the precautionary principle.
-Precautionary measures do not constitute micro-management; your argument is that we are more micro-managed and taxed than ever before in history, my response has been to dispute that this is true. That we may be more subject to surveillance, through closed-circuit tv cameras on our streets, I think that is probably true.
The restaurant in question was presumably already regulated, so the story is not exactly a poster child for the efficacity of regulation.
-But that is not the point -I raised it because it exposed the difficulty of your hostility to 'micro-management' on a health issue where I assume your judgement would be that threats to health should be removed wherever possible. It is actually a difficult case because I assume many people have eaten that liver dish without falling ill and it is the kind of dish you would expect a Michelin-starred chef (albeit that particular Brasserie doesn't have such a star) to have tested many times. So its not about the efficacy of regulation, but the authorites responding to an issue as it arises, which is what they are there for. I agree that in a 'free market', whatever that means, the Brasserie, noting that several people have died/fallen ill after eating the dish would withdraw it from the menu (well, we assume this), but what you have to establish is that the population does not want their food industry regulated in this way, and that I am not sure of. In other words, there may be issues, public health being one of them, where the public actually wants regulations enforced, not withdrawn.
None of this dispensation existed under mediaeval monarchs, whose bureaucracies, whose ability to gather information and act on it, were minute and trivial compared to those of today.
I agree that serfdom was a moral and economic fact of life, but then so is the fact that we work for the government for about half the year (more or less, depending where you live). The distinction is one of like, not one of kind. You refer to the fact that under feudalism, property was (usually) held on sufferance. I would argue that nowadays the concept of property in the western world has been so debased by the terms on which it is held - that boiler you aren't allowed to decide where to locate, for instance, as to be meaningless. Eminent domain, in the US, is another example. Granted, life in the mediaeval era was nastier, more brutish and shorter than it is now, but then again the intervening period of the industrial revolution, as well as medical advances reducing child mortality rates, explain that difference.
As to comparing rates of taxation then and now, you say that "To compare the rate of taxation in the 14th century to what we pay today is meaningless without the context." But that makes my point for me: the context then was of a stunted government which, outside the ambit of the feudal settlement into which most people were born, had no impact on how they lit their mud hits, or where they located their fires within those mud huts, etc. The context now, by contrast, is of a much greater tax take which contributes to funding the micro-management of precisely those things (or their modern equivalent). We are better off, but in many respects less free. And we can be conscripted for military service.
Your attempt to defend your earlier claim that taxes in medieval England were a tiny proportion of what we pay now has not been advanced with any evidence; if we can agree that when a man and all he produces belongs to the noble Lord, and that constitues 100% of what he makes, it is hard to pay more in tax on top of that. But what seems obvious is that the complete absence of freedom itself seems to be a 'mere detail' to you, and because the serf is 'free to choose' where to put a fire in his hut maybe that 100% is wrong. Should we re-calibrate the man's freedom and grant him 1% of freedom to choose where to put the fire, leaving us with a figure of 99% paid in taxes, could it be 0.5% after all its only a fire -? This is sophistry, not history. You might as well claim that cotton pickin' slaves from the ole South had free accommodation, so what were they complaining about?
The problem is induced by the link you make between taxes and freedom in late capitalism, integral to the arguments of Hayek, to take one well-known example. The comparison with medieval England is not going to work because the context is different, the concept of freedom itself has changed from what it was at that time, in addition to which the powers that local barons and the Kings had have changed, as indeed have the powers of the Church and the Parish Council in which you once would have lived.
Your argument has not changed since Mrs Thatcher raised it in the 1970s, and that is based on the argument that people should pay less in tax so that they can decide what to do with the money they earn, rather than have the government decide for them, and on some issues she was right, and taxes were reduced, and she won four elections in a row on that basis. You will also note that not only did the richest people benefit most from her tax regime, her government reduced personal income tax, but then increased secondary taxation with increases on VAT, alcohol, petrol and tobacco, to take just four typical taxes, thereby increasing the tax burden in aggregate terms. Over the lifetime of the Thacher government the UK's maufacturing capacity was reduced by 25%, and the rise in unemployment that followed was paid for from the profits of North Sea oil. The privatisation of the railways has resulted in this 'privately run' industry now absorbing more public money in subsidy than was paid to British Rail as it was at the time, and the fare structure has become a labyrinth of charges few can understand; the costs of running a car/vehicle have increased, for private users and say, haulage businesses; it costs a lot more to smoke yourself into a hospital bed or the grave; and 20 odd years on from the privatisation of the gas industry, we are paying more for gas, with evidence that the 'free market' has led to gas companies fixing prices regardless of it, so that it is a case of 'free to fix' rather than 'free to choose'; and I had the benefit of a free university education but the current generation is expected to create a debt burden -their own private tax- before they have even graduated. Is this freedom?
The evidence we have suggests that the most libertarian government we have had in the UK in the 20th century, and its like-minded successors, did not reduce the tax burden, did not remove government subsidy from industry, and has not made the country safe from attack.
As I have said before, I think most people in this country do not object to paying taxes when the system is transparent and fair, and they can see that the money is indeed being spent on our defence, our health and education and the other uses to which taxes should be put; it is morally the right thing to do, because we all live here and share this island and its resources. These are all issues that can be, and are put to the public vote; if you think we should leave the European Union, NATO and 'go it alone' then you have the opportunity every day to campaign for it, and then ask yourself why nobody votes for it (because it would raise our taxes!) -being a sore loser doesn't win many votes.
Can't subject public safety to cost/benefit analysis. They have nothing to do with each other. Y'all've gotten off the subject of markets now, & moved into the realm of negligence. People shouldn't have to wait for the "market" to catch up with reality. If a business puts the public at risk, regardless of fault, they need to be shut immediately, until the problem gets fixed or they're gone. If someone knowingly puts people at risk for personal gain (cost benefit analysis), it's criminal. Nobody should have to put up with that kind of crap. People trump property. Always.
This is just one example of the many many many reasons that egoism can't work in the real world. It's just a pipe dream, based on a half baked crackpot theory.
an8150 said: "and those are the restaurants, in a free market, most likely to fail, because they do not appreciate that goodwill comprises a million tiny things that can see you through bad publicity or a recession; I'm all in favour of failure, just as I love to see success]."
I often have not followed up on your response because we are both offering our points of view and on questions such as this it doesn't help for me to retort by saying, "nu-uh" like a six year old kid. So I won't say nu-uh, but I don't think you're right.
You think companies would have the incentive to focus on the process by which disease is prevented, something seen as unnecessarily cumbersome by the regulated industries? People learn the hard way. Some businesses fail. On the other hand, some that institute bad policies either do not fail in the short run or do not fail at all.
Even if we were in agreement about what the incentives are, which we are not, there would also be the issue of people not responding as sensitively to the incentives that exist.
The market might respond by turning someone's Botulism dispensing factory into a failure, but the point is not to punish someone who has caused death and misery after the fact. I am sure the market's response would be enough to prevent that person from spreading disease but unfortunately people don't learn from the mistakes and failures of others so well as their own. As you point out the market does eventually prevent bad actors from staying in business, but I am skeptical that this would keep others from cropping up.
The Food and Drug Administration's thorough drug testing policy is one of the best examples I can think of of a cumbersome but necessary regulatory requirement. Quackery abounds in the field of medicine and the placebo effect is a tremendously powerful psychological force. People cannot tell on their own what is efficacious or not and individuals do not always notice when drugs cause insidious problems. Why does the FDA not approve drugs that are safe but ineffective? Because there is an opportunity cost for not getting appropriate treatment for serious illness.
Without stringent regulation of drugs, you would have poorly capitalized companies pitching products with unsupported claims, waiting until the evidence accumulated to sue them. Again, you might say how do you know that. The businesses have an incentive to not harm their image. But when you're dealing with hucksters, the corporate image is harmed in the long-term, IF they're discovered to be charlatans, but the profits accrue in the short-term. Don't they want the public's goodwill? That's what it will require to be a successful company over significant periods of time, but as John Maynard Keynes famously said "in the long-run we're all dead". Why shorten the cycle?
"[it's pro-active in the sense I've described above, re. goodwill and the range of information available to customers, it's just that there are no official records, under that scenario, of how it's pro-active]."
Yes, but you already said you are depending upon failure as a regulatory mechanism. I haven't summed my views enough and instead have tried to be too rhetorical so this is as reductive as I can get.
The incentives for businesses don't lead inexorably to caution.
When the incentives should lead to caution, such incentives are not always heeded.
The public is neither always informed nor always rational.
When businesses fail because they have been unsafe, this a small success propped on top of a giant failure. It is a reaction to something that could have been prevented.
Too many permutations here but none of them work out for you. The public is better at identifying failure than regulators? The public is diffuse, regulators use sophisticated equipment and develop an expertise in identifying and quantifying tolerance levels for risk. The public is comprised of people who not only don't know the full scope of the risks but do not have the capacity to understand the full nature of the risks. Or we could say, they're distracted. It is very difficult to think about in rational terms when you are thinking about getting the cheapest product. As Hippifried said, this cost/benefit analysis could get absurd and miss the point. The public might be acting "rationally" by buying a tube of toothpaste that is a dollar cheaper but more likely to cause cancer. You would probably say that by preventing them from making this awful choice, I am being paternalistic. But do you really hate your father that much that you'd encourage cancer just to spite him? Shame shame.
Freud would be so proud.Quote:
You would probably say that by preventing them from making this awful choice, I am being paternalistic. But do you really hate your father that much that you'd encourage cancer just to spite him? Shame shame.
Stavros, "Precautionary measures do not constitute micro-management [we'll have to agree to disagree about that, although I think you'd be more intellectually honest were you to say that yes they do, but so what, because they are precautionary]; your argument is that we are more micro-managed and taxed than ever before in history [I don't think I said more taxed than ever before], my response has been to dispute that this is true. That we may be more subject to surveillance, through closed-circuit tv cameras on our streets, I think that is probably true.
The restaurant in question was presumably already regulated, so the story is not exactly a poster child for the efficacity of regulation.
-But that is not the point -I raised it because it exposed the difficulty of your hostility to 'micro-management' on a health issue where I assume your judgement would be that threats to health should be removed wherever possible [nope, and "should be removed" is a giveaway; I don't think you can imagine a world in which you're a free man, you're entire world view is based on utilitarian trade-offs which I find morally odious... you can't make an omelette, etc ]. It is actually a difficult case because I assume many people have eaten that liver dish without falling ill and it is the kind of dish you would expect a Michelin-starred chef (albeit that particular Brasserie doesn't have such a star) to have tested many times. So its not about the efficacy of regulation, but the authorites responding to an issue as it arises, which is what they are there for. I agree that in a 'free market', whatever that means [see above: try and conceive it], the Brasserie, noting that several people have died/fallen ill after eating the dish would withdraw it from the menu (well, we assume this) [I don't, see above; either way, in my view it's up to thje restaurant, or should be, and the grown-ups who patronise it], but what you have to establish is that the population does not want their food industry regulated in this way [no I don't; I agree and have agreed numerous times on this thread that most people are cool with your levers and pulleys, legislated incentives and disincentives and utilitarian trade-offs. Indeed, by saying that this is what I have to establish you make my point for me that I am not free because lots of other people demand that I should not be...which takes us back almost to where this thread began, with trish claiming there was no need for Rand's philosophy because the communists had gone away, to which I replied, even at that early stage, that the evidence of this thread was to the contrary], and that I am not sure of [no need to be unsure, you lot have won, and keep winning; people like me keep trying to fight you off]. In other words, there may be issues, public health being one of them, where the public actually wants regulations enforced, not withdrawn [yes, yes and yes; btw, my reference to government interference in what you "ingest" was intended to encompass booze and drugs; care to comment?].
None of this dispensation existed under mediaeval monarchs, whose bureaucracies, whose ability to gather information and act on it, were minute and trivial compared to those of today.
I agree that serfdom was a moral and economic fact of life, but then so is the fact that we work for the government for about half the year (more or less, depending where you live). The distinction is one of like, not one of kind. You refer to the fact that under feudalism, property was (usually) held on sufferance. I would argue that nowadays the concept of property in the western world has been so debased by the terms on which it is held - that boiler you aren't allowed to decide where to locate, for instance, as to be meaningless. Eminent domain, in the US, is another example. Granted, life in the mediaeval era was nastier, more brutish and shorter than it is now, but then again the intervening period of the industrial revolution, as well as medical advances reducing child mortality rates, explain that difference.
As to comparing rates of taxation then and now, you say that "To compare the rate of taxation in the 14th century to what we pay today is meaningless without the context." But that makes my point for me: the context then was of a stunted government which, outside the ambit of the feudal settlement into which most people were born, had no impact on how they lit their mud hits, or where they located their fires within those mud huts, etc. The context now, by contrast, is of a much greater tax take which contributes to funding the micro-management of precisely those things (or their modern equivalent). We are better off, but in many respects less free. And we can be conscripted for military service.
Your attempt to defend your earlier claim that taxes in medieval England were a tiny proportion of what we pay now has not been advanced with any evidence [I can't be bothered to go back through the thread, but I thought you'd conceded that but contended it was irrelevant given the nature of feudal indentured servitude; either way as far as I can tell you are cool with a certain level of indentured servitude. I'm not. Again we'll have to agree to differ]; if we can agree that when a man and all he produces belongs to the noble Lord, and that constitues 100% of what he makes, it is hard to pay more in tax on top of that [a fair point, but we're left with the unfortunate conclusion that modern social democratic governments let us keep that proportion of the fruits of our labour that they see fit in just the same way as did feudal monarchs; as I said above, it's a difference of like not one of kind, and the difference of like is not that great either where the government spends 50% of a nation's earnings]. But what seems obvious is that the complete absence of freedom itself seems to be a 'mere detail' to you, and because the serf is 'free to choose' where to put a fire in his hut maybe that 100% is wrong. Should we re-calibrate the man's freedom and grant him 1% of freedom to choose where to put the fire, leaving us with a figure of 99% paid in taxes, could it be 0.5% after all its only a fire -? This is sophistry, not history [more properly, it's an argument about the precise degree of servitude acceptable to you. No degree of servitude is acceptable to me]. You might as well claim that cotton pickin' slaves from the ole South had free accommodation, so what were they complaining about? [that's a sloppy comparison]
The problem is induced by the link you make between taxes and freedom in late capitalism, integral to the arguments of Hayek, to take one well-known example. The comparison with medieval England is not going to work because the context is different, the concept of freedom itself has changed from what it was at that time [in the sense that "freeman" might carry with it the connotation of "not a serf", yes, and the political theory of liberty was largely unknown or in its infancy. Actually, I'm inclined to throw your cotton picken slaves comparison back at you here: just because Locke, Mill and Rand were unknown to Wat Tyler, what was he complaining about? Or something. Either way, liberty is an eternal value, predating all states and government, whatever one's state of knowledge as to what it might entail; borrowing freely from an arch enemy: "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains"], in addition to which the powers that local barons and the Kings had have changed, as indeed have the powers of the Church and the Parish Council in which you once would have lived [sure, I say they are more sophisticated, better enforced, broader and deeper, and, importantly, subtler, but again, that's just quibbling about the precise degree of acceptable servitude].
Your argument has not changed since Mrs Thatcher raised it in the 1970s, and that is based on the argument that people should pay less in tax so that they can decide what to do with the money they earn, rather than have the government decide for them, and on some issues she was right, and taxes were reduced, and she won four elections in a row on that basis. You will also note that not only did the richest people benefit most from her tax regime, her government [sorry, pet peeve: it was her ministry, not her government] reduced personal income tax, but then increased secondary taxation with increases on VAT, alcohol, petrol and tobacco, to take just four typical taxes, thereby increasing the tax burden in aggregate terms [the Thatcher ministries are problematic for people like me; on the one hand, they are the closest thing we've had to government believing, and to some extent legislating, on the basis of a core belief in liberty. On the other hand, that's really not saying very much given the Butskellite prior consensus and the arguably identical Keynesianism that we've had recently]. Over the lifetime of the Thacher government the UK's maufacturing capacity was reduced by 25%, and the rise in unemployment that followed was paid for from the profits of North Sea oil. The privatisation of the railways has resulted in this 'privately run' industry now absorbing more public money in subsidy than was paid to British Rail as it was at the time, and the fare structure has become a labyrinth of charges few can understand; the costs of running a car/vehicle have increased, for private users and say, haulage businesses; it costs a lot more to smoke yourself into a hospital bed or the grave; and 20 odd years on from the privatisation [a misnomer; these are to some extent state-licensed monopolies but entirely state sub-contractors; no libertarian considers them to be free market solutions] of the gas industry, we are paying more for gas, with evidence that the 'free market' has led to gas companies fixing prices regardless of it [there's no free market in gas supply in the UK, merely somewhat competitive government sub-contractors], so that it is a case of 'free to fix' rather than 'free to choose'; and I had the benefit of a free university education but the current generation is expected to create a debt burden -their own private tax- before they have even graduated. Is this freedom? [nope, it's a range of consequences produced by successive governments' monopoly on legitimate violence; you're confusing the misplaced association of successive British governments with free market initiatives with what would actually happen in a free market. As I say above, and as you seem to accept, you cannot imagine what a free market might look like. You're also confusing liberty with ability/disability]
The evidence we have suggests that the most libertarian government we have had in the UK in the 20th century, and its like-minded successors, did not reduce the tax burden, did not remove government subsidy from industry, and has not made the country safe from attack [yes, as I say, the Thatcher ministries really weren't the free market in tooth and claw nutters the Polly Toynbees of this world would have us believe. Would that they had been]. .
As I have said before, I think most people in this country do not object to paying taxes when the system is transparent and fair, and they can see that the money is indeed being spent on our defence, our health and education and the other uses to which taxes should be put; it is morally the right thing to do, because we all live here and share this island and its resources. These are all issues that can be, and are put to the public vote; if you think we should leave the European Union, NATO and 'go it alone' then you have the opportunity every day to campaign for it [aside from mild intellectual stimulation,what do you think I'm doing here?], and then ask yourself why nobody votes for it (because it would raise our taxes! [shrinking government would raise our taxes???] -being a sore loser doesn't win many votes [indeed not, pork does, though].
hippifried, "Can't subject public safety to cost/benefit analysis [so you'd be prepared to see global GDP spent on, say, closing down a dodgy restaurant or treatment for a woman's diabetes?]. They have nothing to do with each other [you may not like it, and in fact it doesn't matter whether you like it, because will remain true nevertheless, but everything costs something]. Y'all've gotten off the subject of markets now, & moved into the realm of negligence. People shouldn't have to wait for the "market" to catch up with reality [for reality, see: my comments above. Plus, what do you think a market is, if not reality? What did you think you meant when you typed this last sentence?]. If a business puts the public at risk, regardless of fault, they need to be shut immediately [all cars place their buyers, and anyone in the vicinity of those cars, at risk; should all car manufacturers be closed?], until the problem gets fixed or they're gone. If someone knowingly puts people at risk for personal gain (cost benefit analysis), it's criminal. Nobody should have to put up with that kind of crap. People trump property. Always [assuming absolute property rights, what if A says of his priceless Stradivarius that he wishes it were saved first from a wrecked cruise liner? Do you propose that his wishes are ignored and he is forcibly prioritised over the instrument?].
This is just one example of the many many many reasons that egoism can't work in the real world. It's just a pipe dream, based on a half baked crackpot theory. "
broncofan, "The public might be acting "rationally" by buying a tube of toothpaste that is a dollar cheaper but more likely to cause cancer. You would probably say that by preventing them from making this awful choice, I am being paternalistic. But do you really hate your father that much that you'd encourage cancer just to spite him? Shame shame."
The shame is on you, for your unexpected cheapness in writing those words. Moreover, it's a sloppy comparison. You and your fellow travellers are not my parents. Politicians are not my parents. Furthermore, as an adult in middle age, I don't expect my actual parents to behave paternalistically towards me. They may be concerned about me, but since I am no longer a child in their care, my mistakes are my own to make.
[QUOTE=an8150;1241790]
Stavros, "Precautionary measures do not constitute micro-management [we'll have to agree to disagree about that, although I think you'd be more intellectually honest were you to say that yes they do, but so what, because they are precautionary];
--but that would depend on how you define the balance between precautionary measures and what you call 'micro-management' so it is not a matter of me being dishonest at all, and since we probably don't even agree on the difference between management and micro-management, this exchange is futile, unless of course you are not just right but absolutely right, which I suspect is what you believe.
I don't think you can imagine a world in which you're a free man, you're entire world view is based on utilitarian trade-offs which I find morally odious... you can't make an omelette, etc
--This is sophistry -you suggest that the concept of a 'free man' is an absolute value, so any impingement on that 'freedom' becomes a negative interference in your life precisely because you claim freedom is an absolute -and crucially, an individual- condition that should not be interfered with: this enables you to introduce the concept of 'utilitarian trade-offs' as a perversion of individual freedom which suggests that either you only stop at a red light when you feel like it or because you can deduce not doing so might kill you; or you abide by the rules of the road which limit your freedom and you thus in practice subscribe to a 'utilitarian trade-off'.
The fundamental problem is that freedom is not an individual, but a social concept: it is about the formation of relations between people and is derived from the concept of friendship, so that an infringement of freedom is in fact an infringement of a basic human activity, which is to gather together people in mutually beneficial relationships.
Either way, liberty is an eternal value, predating all states and government, whatever one's state of knowledge as to what it might entail; borrowing freely from an arch enemy: "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains"
-Liberty is a different concept from freedom, and is not an eternal value but one that has developed out of the experience of politics since Sumerian times. It counterposes the power of governments, monarchs, dictators, religions etc to the desires and needs of society, a group of individuals who relate to each other. As you know, there are concepts of negative and positive liberty and these have developed with the modern state, but it is common for people to confuse liberty with freedom.
Your argument has not changed since Mrs Thatcher raised it in the 1970s...You will also note that not only did the richest people benefit most from her tax regime, her government [sorry, pet peeve: it was her ministry, not her government]
-more sophistry -you know as well as I do that the Queen does not choose who is going to be a Minister in her government even if the Minister cannot take office without it, its a formality so for you to nit-pick when you knew what I mean is either excessive or you are shy in calling for the removal of the monarchy.
a misnomer; these are to some extent state-licensed monopolies but entirely state sub-contractors; no libertarian considers them to be free market solutions...there's no free market in gas supply in the UK, merely somewhat competitive government sub-contractors
--I take this as an example of the futility of utopian desire -even if the UK government did not control any aspect of the gas industry, did not tax it, and just opened the market to any gas company to provide a service based on customer choice, how would you trade in gas from Algeria or Russia if the origin of the supply was not also beyond the control of the governments in those states? It is like permament revolution, unless there is an end to all government, you only need one link in the value chain to be controlled by government and your 'freedom' is impinged.
Stavros,
--but that would depend on how you define the balance between precautionary measures and what you call 'micro-management' so it is not a matter of me being dishonest at all, and since we probably don't even agree on the difference between management and micro-management, this exchange is futile, unless of course you are not just right but absolutely right, which I suspect is what you believe. [I do. But if the government telling you which lightbulbs to use, and where to put your boiler, doesn't constitute micro-management, I don't know what does. Some years ago, a friend of mine obtained a visa to visit North Korea. He told me that in every home, there was a picture of the Dear Leader hanging in the same place in the living room. And the nub of that was: every such picture was required to hang from the wall at precisely the same angle. Does that pass your test for micro-management?]
I don't think you can imagine a world in which you're a free man, you're entire world view is based on utilitarian trade-offs which I find morally odious... you can't make an omelette, etc
--This is sophistry -you suggest that the concept of a 'free man' is an absolute value [correct], so any impingement on that 'freedom' becomes a negative interference in your life precisely because you claim freedom is an absolute -and crucially, an individual- condition that should not be interfered with: this enables you to introduce the concept of 'utilitarian trade-offs' as a perversion of individual freedom which suggests that either you only stop at a red light when you feel like it or because you can deduce not doing so might kill you [there have been some interesting experiments in abolishing red lights, which as I understand have tended to show that road users become more cautious. I don't have a problem with rules of the road, though, I merely say that they should be a matter of contract rather than criminal law]; or you abide by the rules of the road which limit your freedom and you thus in practice subscribe to a 'utilitarian trade-off'.
The fundamental problem is that freedom is not an individual, but a social concept: it is about the formation of relations between people and is derived from the concept of friendship, so that an infringement of freedom is in fact an infringement of a basic human activity, which is to gather together people in mutually beneficial relationships [I think you've gone off the rails there, although I have some difficulty following what you've written. I think you've lost sight of the distinction between voluntary interraction and coerced behaviour].
Either way, liberty is an eternal value, predating all states and government, whatever one's state of knowledge as to what it might entail; borrowing freely from an arch enemy: "man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains"
-Liberty is a different concept from freedom [if there's a difference, it's the same as that between loving someone and being in love with someone], and is not an eternal value but one that has developed out of the experience of politics since Sumerian times [I suspect you see politics as positively desirable; to me it just about amounts to a regrettable necessity, and only in very limited circumstances; politics superimposes itself on liberty, liberty is our natural condition]. It counterposes the power of governments, monarchs, dictators, religions etc to the desires and needs of society, a group of individuals who relate to each other. As you know, there are concepts of negative and positive liberty and these have developed with the modern state [and as you know, positive liberty is an abuse of language; it's what I've referred to previously as the failure to distinguish liberty from (dis)ability], but it is common for people to confuse liberty with freedom.
Your argument has not changed since Mrs Thatcher raised it in the 1970s...You will also note that not only did the richest people benefit most from her tax regime, her government [sorry, pet peeve: it was her ministry, not her government]
-more sophistry -you know as well as I do that the Queen does not choose who is going to be a Minister in her government even if the Minister cannot take office without it, its a formality so for you to nit-pick when you knew what I mean is either excessive or you are shy in calling for the removal of the monarchy. [I'm ambivalent towards Brenda, contemptuous towards her son and heir; the gravamen of my pet peeve is that the modern tendency to refer to a premier's ministry as his or her government subtly psychologically endorses the increasing presidential tendencies of modern British prime ministers, and few of us wish to see a president Thatcher/Blair/Brown (delete as desired)]
a misnomer; these are to some extent state-licensed monopolies but entirely state sub-contractors; no libertarian considers them to be free market solutions...there's no free market in gas supply in the UK, merely somewhat competitive government sub-contractors
--I take this as an example of the futility of utopian desire -even if the UK government did not control any aspect of the gas industry, did not tax it, and just opened the market to any gas company to provide a service based on customer choice, how would you trade in gas from Algeria or Russia if the origin of the supply was not also beyond the control of the governments in those states? It is like permament revolution, unless there is an end to all government, you only need one link in the value chain to be controlled by government and your 'freedom' is impinged. [you're moving the goalposts somewhat: my observations on this point were intended to respond to the claim that such a free market existed and its failings were therefore justifiably criticised as failings of a free market. It's actually gerrymandered state capitalism. By all means criticise its failings, but don't attribute them to the failings of a free market. But to respond to your moving of the goalposts, as I understand it, you worry that Britons couldn't buy gas from Russia without government-to-government negotiation. Putting aside for one moment the fact that that amounts to nothing more than the claim that because the Russians have a protection racket, we need to have one, too, they'd be cutting their noses to spite their faces if they refused to sell us gas just because we didn't have a government department to oil the wheels. That's not to say they wouldn't do that, but then they could do it anyway. Indeed, I think they've done it with the Ukrainians.]
Assuming this and other similar photographs have not been debunked, I call savages:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world...s-8346406.html
There are indeed places in the modern world where the rule of government do not apply and where there are no laws. I listened to a BBC report about one this week. A young man, a refugee, had fled his home country somewhere in Africa and had been captured in the depths of the Sinai desert by - I think - Bedouin who were holding him hostage until has family paid thousands in money to win his freedom. The young man said he'd been tortured. And that his family could not raise the money to win his a freedom. His expected fate - already meted out to many other similar hostages was to be doused with petrol and burned alive. This was how the kidnappers exercised their freedom. Their inalienable rights to liberty.
Now it is less likely that this would happen in a place where there were laws and rules and Government regulation. In Sinai, not covered by any effective laws, this has happened to many people and, by now, may well have happened to this poor soul. His freedom versus the freedom of his captors. Incidentally the kidnapper was also interviewed on the telephone by the BBC reporter. He said he has to do this because it was how he made a living. If the ransom was not paid, he would burn the young man.
Regulations and laws prevent this being an acceptable way to exercise your freedom in most parts of the world. Such laws of course impinge on the freedom of individuals such as this kidnapper and his associates. Perhaps such laws, should be scrapped on the higher altar of freedom.
When I quoted Hegel a weeks ago the naive idealist who is arguing here for total liberty accused me of being hateful. I was, in fact referencing Isaiah Berlin's use of this phrase in his essays about the challenge a civilised society has in reconciling seemingly irreconcilable concepts - including liberty and societal rules. The example i quote above is - to me - a perfect example of the need for law, for rules, for the hand of government, to limit man's capacity for cruelty.
As the in-house niaive idealist, I must ask whether people are ever kidnapped, tortured, burned alive and murdered in England?
Besides, Prospero, you're confusing the badlands of the earth where there be dragons with civil societies where the writ of the law runs. Libertarians don't say there should be no law, much less no criminal law (although I think anarcho-capitalists, if I understand their position correctly, argue that all law is enforced privately on a micro scale), and we certainly don't say that freedom means freedom to kidnap etc. Moreover minarchist libertarians such as I argue that the only legitimate role for the state is collective self-defence against aggressors. The unfortunate to whom you refer wandered off the reservation to a dangerous place, presumably unarmed, certainly outnumbered and found himself confronted by savages who know no rule of law or property rights and who, as a result, make their living in the manner you described. My faith in mankind is such that, given property rights upheld by the rule of law, my utopia would not resemble such a place because there would be no need for it. While many have the capacity for violence, most humans are not wantonly cruel in the way you describe. Still, it's instructive to see Hobbes' spirit living on.
I have no problem at all with the "global GDP" being spent on treating & preventing the spread of disease. Yeah everything costs something, but so what? Smallpox no longer exists in nature, & private entrepreneurship had nothing to do with that result. It was collusion between governments, spending tax monies, & forcing compulsory vaccinations. There was no financial reward. I have the scar. My children, grandchildren, & great grandchildren do not. It's not necessary for them because the cheapskates, with all their excuses & phony whining about "liberty", were pushed aside & ignored.Quote:
Originally Posted by an8150
I know what a market is, what it can & cannot do, & what it will & will not do. Like always, I meant exactly what I said. There's nothing between the lines. I speak plain English, & refuse to converse in "Rand-speak".
There's a demand for cars. The odds of personal injury from them is almost nil for someone who doesn't voluntarily participate in that mode of transportation. There's no demand at all for botulism, sponge form encephalitis, or deadly e-coli. It's just another bogus analogy, although, the common denominator is regulation. That's how we use the government to "defend" us against the negligence of others in regard to known issues that are preventable.
I don't & won't assume "absolute property rights" because there are no such thing as "property rights" to begin with. Property has no rights, & people don't have more rights than others because they claim ownership of property. If some idiot wants to risk his life to retrieve his fiddle from the sinking ship, then he better be able to swim because there's no reason to hold the lifeboat for him. If his actions can somehow put others at higher risk, then yeah, he gets forced. People trump property. Always.
I'll continue to stick to that last statement of mine. I have yet to see a rebuttal for it.
You've answered a series of questions there, hippifried, but none of them is a response to the questions I posed. Why have you purported to answer my questions when in fact answering other, different questions? Did you think I wouldn't notice?