Willpower will power

Anthony,

Yes, I know that many of them have scruples against enforcing their beliefs. For most, those scruples have more to do with being effective in a context in which violence would get them in trouble with governments, than with their moral calculus. But if they favor making abortion illegal, then context governs only the means. Under democratic governments, the most effective means is persuasion. Under a regime of multiple "protection agencies," the most effective means will be to use the least-cost compromise mechanism. It would be the most available mechanism to accomplish what they openly say they want, which is to make abortion illegal. Why do you have so much trouble understanding that those who intend to make abortion illegal, will make use of the most effective means they have, in the given context, to do so?

I think that you are giving me the runaround in this discussion. I think that this indicates a lack of grounding.

Post 41

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 1:22pm

Jason Quintana wrote:
"Socialism does not work, not for steel mills and not for police. Socialism does not work, not for farms and not for courts."
Michael, you are applying a different definition to socialism then is commonly used -- and so I think you need to explain what it is specifically that you mean by this word. You seem to be simply replacing the word "government" with "socialism".
Based on our ability to pay we all contribute to a common pool of resources, then resources are taken from the pool based on need. You can live your whole life in a town and never need a cop while dysfunctional married couples call the police on a regular basis. Their domestic violence escalates into a court case that neither of them pays for.

The police patrol the same neighborhoods year after year, decade after decade. Some neighborhoods seldom if ever see a patrol car. In some neighborhoods certain people demand a lot of attention -- and get it, while most other people never draw from the common pool of resources.

We all chip in. Everyone takes what they need. That sounds like socialism to me. How do you define it?

Post 42

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 1:36pm

Adam Reed wrote:

Does anyone think that people who believe in their "cause" enough to explode bombs in abortion clinics, or in crowded buses and trains, would not, in the absence of states, form their own "market-based defense agencies" and proceed to compromise the freedoms of the rest of us? Does anyone seriously expect reality to conform to the rationalistic dreamworld of Rothbardian economics?

These people attempt to become states, to force themselves by violence on others. States carry out these same atrocities on a much larger scale. The difference is of quantity, not quality.

It might be argued by a liberal that the reason that we have government regulation of the marketplace is that most people believe that the rationalistic dreamworld of ideal capitalism does not apply to reality any more than did the utopia of Marxism. An American liberal Democrat might claim that left to themselves, robber baron capitalists would poison people for profit -- in fact, they do that right now. We need more government to bring these corporate killers into line, the socialists would say. They would correctly point out that in America, at least, we the people can vote for Congressional Representatives like Nancy Pelosi or Senators like Ted Kennedy who work for the people. The left-liberal or traditionalist conservative would acknowledge, that of course, you can have too much government, like in Germany and Russia, so we have a balance of powers and regular elections and a free press. The mainstream view from the campus political science department woujld be that we limit government and we limit corporations and we have a society that is not perfect, but pretty close -- and no place on Earth is better. And they would ask you: Why would you want to change it?

Here is a statist argument, constructed along the same lines you own. Take the income tax. The rich are most able to pay -- and that is the essential fairness in a progressive tax. Yet, the rich control the government. So, if they did not want to pay -- and they have plenty of loopholes written in for them -- they would not. The fact is that the top 20% of income earners pay 66% of the taxes in America. Yet, Objectivists claim that income taxes -- or maybe all taxes -- are immoral. But everyone voted on them. That is the system we have because it works. Anything else is a rationalistic dreamworld.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 8/04, 2:09pm)

Post 43

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 2:04pm

Jason Quintana asked: "How does "private defense force" prevent victimization?"

A manufacturer of precision biologicals will have millions of dollars of value on their premises -- and be but one business in an industrial park with 20 or 100 neighbors., The property of those businesses must be protected. The police generally do not do this because property does not vote. Police patrol neighborhoods were people (voters) live. So, the businesses hire private agencies.

These agencies prevent crime by inspecting premises when they take on a contract to recommend alarms and monitors and ways to secure entrances and otherwise protect property with adequate lighting, fencing, etc. etc. etc.
The agencies do this with clear presence as their first deterrant. They patrol in vehicles and on foot so that any would-be robber sees them and knows that they are there. In addition, should a robber evade the patrols and approach the property, lights go on. Should they get around that, silent alarms and audible alarms go off.

Yes, you can get around anything -- that is true no matter how the police are paid. However, a market model for property protection impels toward loss prevention. A socialist model reacts to losses and attempts to punish wrongdoers after the fact.

We have vigorous markets in property protection. There are more private guards in uniform than public police. More money is spent on private protection (ratios of two to one private over public by many studies). The fact is there is a lot of prevention going on, but you do not see it because it is prevention.

What we have more of is police propaganda. Call it "advertising." We have television shows called "Cops" but none called "Guards." America's drug laws have created a 750 per 100,000 population of prison inmates, the highest in the world. That is what your public police do. They do not prevent victimization.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 8/04, 2:12pm)

Post 44

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 2:08pm

Michael:

Take the income tax.� The rich are most able to pay -- and that is the essential fairness in a progressive tax.

It reminds me of a little anecdote...

10 friends are eating their dinner together at a restaurant every single day. The total bill is 1000$ and they split it the same way you split your tax, the 4 first ones are poor so they don't pay anything, the fifth pays 10$, the sixth 30$, the seventh 70$, the eighth 120$ the ninth 180$ and the tenth (the richest of then all) 590$.

Now these guys eat at the same restaurant each and every day, and they are all pleased with the way they split the bill... until one day... the owner of the restaurant comes to their table: "my friends, since you are so good customers i have decided to give you a discount" - and the friends are happy "a discount" they say - "yes, i will give you 200$ in discount" so from then on the total price was to be 800$.

As they would still like to pay the same way you pay your taxes the 4 first friends still don't have to pay so no difference for them, but what about the remaining six friends ? If they split the amount equally it will be a deduction worth 33,33$ to each, but if they deduct that from person 5 and 6 they should have money for eating - so the owner of the restaurant suggest that they split the discount according to how much they pay... and he begins to calculate

Finally he comes back with the result now the fifth person can also eat for free, the sixth only have to pay 20$, the seventh 50$, the eighth 90$ the ninth 120$ and the tenth 520$ instead of 590. They all pay less and the four first ones still eat for free, and all is fine until one of them starts counting how much they each have saved...

"Oh! i only got 10$ of the 200" the sixth person begins, and points at the tenth "while you got 70". "Exactly" exclaims the fifth "i too only got 10, its unfair that you should have 7 times more than me"

"its true" shouts the seventh person "why should you have 70, when i only got 20, the rich people always get the most!"

"hey wait a minute" the first four people shouts as with one mouth "we didn't get anything, this system exploits the poor people"

So the nine other friends yell and shout at the tenth guy, and beats him up.

The next evening the tenth guy doesn't show - "well, its better that way" they laugh, so without waiting any further the 9 friends start eating. When done they are happy and full, but when the check arrives they discover something odd... they are missing 520$.

Post 45

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 2:16pm

Adam, I just don't think most people, Christian, secular or otherwise, would find it an attractive use of their personal time, money and energy to attack every perceived sin of theirs. There are fanatical drugwarriors, but how many of them would fund a failing drug war personally? There are crazed people on left and right, but how many would chip in voluntarily to lock up the bogeymen who bother them?

Under anarchy, since simply going around violently attacking women and doctors would soon prove a failed method of stopping abortion, I honesty think people would give up on that method. Crusades such as that persist when there is a state infrastructure, legions of people whose job it is to enforce or lobby for legislation, a bureaucratic class dependent on the program's continuation, an elaborate propaganda apparatus whose costs have been socialized and dispersed, and, above all, a culture of statist collectivism, which any thoughtful anarchist will admit has to be abandoned by society for anarchy to emerge in the first place.

It is no coincidence that much of the first movement for women's liberation overlapped nicely with the anarchist tradition. It was the state that allowed for patriarchy to become ubiquitous and virtually inescapable. The original feminists realized that the state must be stripped of its power to regulate their bodies, and, although they never denied that culture itself posed problems for women's liberation, even outside the sphere of state action, almost all of them expected dramatic improvements for women once the state retracted and was uprooted completely.

Post 46

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 2:04pm

Adam Reed tells us that "Pro Lifers" refrain from assassinating abortionists and bombing abortion clinics only because of the wonderful State, which "protects" Adam from the nightmare that would ensue if these fanatics were able to do what he (Adam) knows they really want to do.

I'm reminded, for some reason, of an anecdote related by the late Alexander King:

"My friend Norman happens to be a Zen Buddhist at the moment. He used to be a
Communist once. It figures. But suddenly, a couple of years ago, he saw the
true light and since then he's been thoroughly illuminated. At any rate,
every time this character comes to visit me and finally gets ready to leave,
he stops in the doorway, folds his hands Hindu fashion, lowers his
fourth-dimensional eyelids and says: 'May this house be safe from tigers.'
He does this every time.

"The other day, when his senseless little orison had fallen on me again, I
said to him, 'What is the meaning of this idiot prayer you're always
uttering over me every time you leave here. What the hell does it mean,
anyway?'

"Norman looked surprised and even a little hurt, and finally he gave off the
familiar long-suffering sigh of the frequently misunderstood. 'What's wrong
with my prayer?' he said. 'How long have I been saying it to you?'

"'Oh, about three years, on and off.'

"'Three years,' he said. 'Well, been bothered by any tigers lately?'

"Perfectly correct. So, since it is surely one of the most effective
benedictions I have ever encountered, I've decided to share this powerful
and potent spell with the rest of the world."

Adam's State is a lot like Norman's potent spell. Its efficacy is non-falsifiable, in Karl Popper's sense. Nothing can convince Adam that the State isn't "protecting" him against a non-existent threat.

As I said earlier in this thread, irrational fear. That's the issue.

JR

Post 47

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 4:16pm

Jeff,

I've dealt with enough religion-motivated people in my life to know that a significant fraction of them would use any available power to enforce their beliefs. So far, you have not even attempted to demonstrate that the least-cost compromise mechanism would not give them this power - all I have seen from you is the plainly counterfactual assertion that such people either do not exist, or do not exist in sufficient numbers to be worried about them.

I'm a scientist, so I'll be willing to believe that from data. Just set up an experimental society with market-based defense agencies somewhere, and show me in practice that religiously motivated coercion disappears if government is gone. Until that happens, I will continue to base my estimate of that threat on data from the society I actually live in, where some 40% of the population want abortion to be criminalized and are willing to pay for enforcement of anti-abortion laws.

Good luck!

Post 48

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 4:35pm

Adam, if they tried to use freelance violence to enforce their morality on others, those others would hire defense agencies to protect them. There would only be so much of a market for aggressive violence, and MUCH more of a market for defense. Organizations that went around attacking women and doctors would not get much support from the vast majority of people, just as today abortionist murderers are not at all popular among almost all of even the most pro-life Americans. And it is not because it is "illegal" that these abortionist murderers are condemned by the pro-life movement. It is because they are nuts and people understand that violence is just not the answer to everything � unless, of course, it is State violence, which most people, including many libertarians and most Objectivists, strangely excuse in many cases where they wouldn't if such violence was conducted by the private sector.

I don't see what the big confusion over it is.

Post 49

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 5:18pm

Anthony Said :

"Organizations that went around attacking women and doctors would not get much support from the vast majority of people, just as today abortionist murderers are not at all popular among almost all of even the most pro-life Americans"

It is not necessary for an orginization like this to be supported by a vast majority of people it is only necessary that it create fear in a majority of them. This is the basic rule of power politics. Your system creates an endless number of mini, lawless principalities. The groups that wish to gain power and influence won't try to gain popularity -- this isn't as useful in situations where anarchy exists. Whether the groups have some ideological goal, or whether their goal is simply to loot and gain wider power their tactic will be to create fear first with popularity being only a secondary goal.

- Jason

(Edited by Jason Quintana on 8/04, 5:20pm)

Post 50

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 6:56pm

Jason Quintana wrote: "It is not necessary for an orginization like this to be supported by a vast majority of people it is only necessary that it create fear in a majority of them. This is the basic rule of power politics."

Oh, Lord, let his ears hear what his mouth is saying!

Post 51

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 7:19pm

I seem to miss the shocking element in what I just posted and I do not see how any of you can worm your way out of the fact that your "private defense forces" would be overrun by these types of elements. The only governmental system that can avoid taking part in, and can effectively deal with these types of threats is a UNITED constitutional republic with the proper built in checks and balances to ensure that it isn't initiating force itself.

- Jason

Post 52

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 7:23pm

"The only governmental system that can avoid taking part in, and can effectively deal with these types of threats is a UNITED constitutional republic with the proper built in checks and balances to ensure that it isn't initiating force itself."

And let me see. . .we know this because the government of our constitutional republic never initiates force against anyone. The "checks and balances" see to that.

Uh huh.

JR

Post 53

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 7:35pm

No -- but we CAN see the logical next steps and can provide a basic plan of action to eliminate the remaining problems with the system we already have in place. The number of problems left to solve under the framework of the constitutional republic are FAR FEWER then they are with your proposed anarchy.

- Jason

Post 54

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 7:42pm

Jason Quintana wrote: "I seem to miss the shocking element in what I just posted..."

The government has scared you into believing that if it did not protect you that you would be victimized by hordes of crazed political and/or religious fanatics, bloodthirsty murderers, maurading looters, and (worst of all) "mafia protection rackets."

There is just not that much violence in the world and most of what there is comes from governments, often run of by crazed political fanatics, religious fanatics, bloodthirsty murderers, mauradiing looters and (least of all) "mafia protection rackets." Government is not the solution. It is the problem. Govern-mentality is the opposite of the pro-life, pro-choice, bourgeois mercantile, value-for-value business ethic of the creator, inventor, producer and trader.

Also, Jason, you owe a reply to my reply about the ways that private protection agencies prevent victimization in #43 above. You read my reply. Do you agree or not?

Jason wrote: No -- but we CAN see the logical next steps and can provide a basic plan of action to eliminate the remaining problems ...

Why is this allowed or begged for with government, but not for the market? Why do you draw a line around two areas of business, protection and adjudication, and say, "Oh, these cannot be improved under capitalism. Only steel and rails can be improved, healthcare, underwater exploration, space travel, water desalination, arts, literature, pure science, applied research, bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers, aviation, homes, schools, factories, banks, computers, scissors, surgical procedures, antibiotics, telephones, cameras, televisions, home recording for the previous, broadcast for television, radio, and iPods, iPods, make-up, sunscreen, hair gel, shoes, belts, and toenail clippers, but not defense and arbitration."

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 8/04, 7:50pm)

Post 55

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 7:55pm

Yes, I just noticed it and I will definately be replying. Both of your posts require weighty responses that I don't have time to do at the moment. Thank you for being the only one among the anarchists to at least attempt a real argument. But let me just say that I am certain that given a sudden absence of central government in the United States we would slowly and surely be overun by various factions and groups of thugs. I think there is an amazing amount of evidence for this tendency. The best possible solution to a scenario like this would be for some group supporting a constitutional republic to defeat the thugs and regain control. That would be the best case scenario if somehow your idea were enacted.

- Jason

Post 56

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 8:24pm

Adam Reed re: 47, you are not being logical. At this stage of your life, in this forum, you are not likely to change your mind here and now. This post is not to convince you but to identify the errors for anyone with an open mind.

You say:"Just set up an experimental society with market-based defense agencies somewhere, and show me in practice that religiously motivated coercion disappears if government is gone."

Obviously, we cannot do that because every place on Earth is claimed by some government. A symmetrical argument would be that Objectivism is a bunch of hogwash but I will be willing to listen to you if you set up a perfectly Objectivist society and show me that it works.

Also, your bugbear is religious people. I think that some regular participants here might fear homophobes. Whatever your bad guy, the question is the same: does the government protect you from coercion or does it merely attempt to find the person who coerced you (regardless of their excuse) and punish them?

Harry Browne called in Rheingold. I call it Vespucciland.
If we lived in a anarchist world now, and you wanted to set up a constitutional republic, you would have to convince us that the president will never be an inarticulate boob who caters to religious fundamentalists. I mean, some of us here in Vespucciland might want you to prove to us that a constitutional republic would never outlaw same-sex marriage. I mean, I know this seems far-fetched, but humor me. Is there any way to ensure that people would not lose their right to -- oh, I dont' know.... drink alcohol or smoke marijuana? (I mean, just say, for instance.) What reason do you have to believe that abortions or birth control could never become illegal or that prostitution never would be proscribed? I mention these things because here in Vespucciland, we have some folks with wierd ideas and sometimes they get raucus and I was just wondering what would happen if religious fanatics ever seized a whole geography the size of Persia or Mesopotamia or Palestine or the Hindu Kush, to say nothing of Utah or, heck, the Appalachian Piedmonts. I mean in that case, can you prove that nearly 1% of the population would not end up in jail?

Post 57

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 8:47pm

In 55 Jason scared me stiff with this: "... given a sudden absence of central government in the United States ..."

Yeah, well, some anarchists think that if we pushed the Magic Gimme Button and eliminated the governments (plural) that the people would find that they enjoy freedom a whole lot and things would be pretty good from now on.

I believe that if government instantly went away, it would be hell. It would be like Yugoslavia or any place else when authority abdicates and people run amok. That is why I do not advocate Instant Anarchy.

I agree with Ayn Rand -- and Harry Browne. A philosophical revolution must precede any broader, more concrete changes. There were three generations between 1688 and 1776.

Also, I do believe that government can be replaced here and now with market alternatives. We see this in schooling, with home schooling especially, which was unthinkable 30 years ago.

One of the reasons -- perhaps the reason -- that the US government continues with NASA is that they know that the minute they stop going into space, private enterprise will fill the void and government will be grounded forever while private enterprise takes the high frontier.

Read about Thurgood Marshall here: http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm Things do change. I believe that a hundred years from now, all governments will be noticeably weaker, many geographies will have effectively no government, and private enterprise will be greatly expanded. Will it be "ideal"? No, because Idealism is a Platonic fallacy. Will it be better than life today? Yes.

Post 58

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 4:23pm

S�ren, if only it were as easy to avoid taxes as it is to stay home while your ungrateful friends go to dinner!

Post 59

Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 8:32am