Why is Ron Paul so popular?

Obviously for the purposes of participating in this discussion I don't have time to drop everything to go buy/borrow and read Hunger and Public Action. Not having much access to first-hand research, I can only note from casual browsing that Chile's continued free market reforms after the crash in the early 80s are credited with the result of a relatively prosperous country (relative to other South American nations).

The basic statistics in the CIA factbook don't portray a particularly bleak picture of a relatively free-market country:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ci.htm…

Somebody copied off somebody here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Chile

It notes Chile has a relatively poor income distribution, although there seems to be some dispute over exactly how much of the population is below the poverty line.

As I said above, I'm not an expert on Chile and if you have read Hunger and Public Action, you are more researched in this area than I am. But given what I've read about the factors leading up to the problems in the early 80's I don't think it is unreasonable for people to have differing opinions as to the cause(s). It certainly isn't a conclusive way of shutting down debate by saying Chile 75-82=free market economy=fail.

And I'll repeat my assertion: Anti-capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it capitalism. Capitalists look at authoritarianism and call it statism. We probably agree that authoritarianism SUCKS, but we keep voting for it because each side has paid shills to re-inforce the definitions that prevent objective study.

You can repeat your assertion until you're blue in the face, and it will still be nonsense founded on an inability to distinguish the words "consistent with" from "equivalent to".

I look at authoritarianism and call it authoritarianism. It doesn't have anything to do with the economic policies employed. There can be authoritarian socialists, authoritarian capitalists, and on and on. It just happens that Pinochet's regime was an example of an authoritarian capitalist government, as opposed to the authoritarian populist one of, for example, Peru's Manuel Odría.

"Are you kidding me? Communism = State-Capitalism? I guess to an anarchist, any private property is capitalist."

No, but congratulations on maintaining a startling consistency in your careless readings. I didn't say communism was state capitalism, but that communist governments, where enacted, have been more properly called state capitalist ones. Take, for example, the Soviet Union. After the October Revolution, it was actually a government of soviets, or workers' councils, with a federated system of delegates for high-level decisions, for all of fifteen minutes. Then the Bolsheviks established a strict state bureaucracy, and killed the workers by the thousands when they dared protest their new powerless in this 'worker's paradise' (see Kronstadt 1921 by Paul Avrich for a look at one specific instance).

So at this point, the Soviet Union stopped being all about its soviets, and yet it wasn't individually capitalistic either. It was a hybrid of state power and capitalism that is properly called state capitalism. The same thing is going on in contemporary China.

By the way, I'd suggest you learn something of anarchism, since there are many anarchists who not only countenance but encourage private property, e.g. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (yes, the same Proudhon who said "property is theft" and no, there is no intrinsic contradiction between that statement in context and his support of private property). No anarchists I know use that as their basis for calling something "capitalist".

It certainly isn't a conclusive way of shutting down debate by saying Chile 75-82=free market economy=fail.

Which is not the argument I'm making by a long shot. All I am saying is that the economic indicators for the poor and working class went down significantly after Pinochet's neoliberal policies were enacted. Whether that is a "fail" depends on many imponderables which I could not begin to try to convince you of, including, significantly, whether one gives a damn about the poor and working class.

Furthermore, the stats you cited are not relevant, since they do not come from the Pinochet era. This is not just academic, since it has been demonstrated (in Manuel Castells' Globalización, Desarrollo y Democracia) that the reforms undertaken during the period of post-Pinochet democratization caused economic indicators to rise at every level, and the economy to become more redistributive from where it was under Pinochet.

"I'm actually rather sorry that most of the best discussion is taking place this far down and this far removed from the original blog post--it's undoubtedly not getting read by many others outside of us few remaining participants."

Which is why I tend not to get too invested in these arguments. I know a hell of a lot more than most of the posters on these areas but it really would take too much effort to teach them. Especially when their religious socialists.

The whole issue of capitalism naturally working against both racial discrimination and slavery is an interesting one. Thomas Sowell a black economist analyzed this quite well in several of his books.

Some interesting and counterintuitive facts are that it was bus companies and theater owners who were against Jim Crow, and the state that was for it. Another interesting fact is that trade unions were a standard instrument of discrimination and impediment to reform. This was true outside the US also. In South Africa for instance trade unions used minimum wage laws to prevent blacks from being hired in the mines.

None of these facts are mysterious with proper economic understanding. Turns out that racists have interests as individuals and as members of the group. However, one is much stronger than the other. It's almost Dawkinian the way Sowell shows that in this case group selection is the weaker factor under capitalism. Whereas, he also shows that cost shifting via the State and anti-capitalist laws allows group interests to win out.

I'm not going to dumb it down or explain further. Pick up a book.

BTW, he also shows that capitalism works against slavery also, and that only via cost shifting via the State or some state like apparatus can slavery pay off. In the long run manumission makes sense to the slaver in a capitalist society where the state won't pick up his enforcement bills, whereas, with State supported slavery the slaver can shift costs to others in society.

Isn't it selfish how P Z Myers spends his time playing with squids instead of doing the hard work of actually reading about the economics of race in order to understand the true problem and get at actual solutions. Shame on all of you for shifting the costs to libertarians why greedily basking in the light of "holier than thou" false and sanctimonious concern for others. If you were truly concerned you'd get off your ass learn something.

Now I'm going to go do something I enjoy like plan my garden instead of sacrificing my day to make the world a better place, and yes I give blood, voluteer at the boys and girls club, give to charity and the rest.

Ignorant bigots.

Nullifidian:
Now, what really happened in Chile is that wages fell 8% between 1970 and 1989.

Only goes to show how little you know what you're talking about. Even if wages fall by 99% it's not necessary a bad thing. Thanks to government granted privileges, labor unions may negotiate wages that are 99% above their market equilibrium which leads to misallocation of resources, unemployment and so on. Also, nominal wage increases tell nothing about purchasing power. The purchasing power of an average Chilean has increased so that it's now almost on par with Western Europe. This is thanks to economic reforms initiated under Pinochet, although his successors carried out further important reforms.

By 1989 the social safety net was hacked to pieces with family allowances declining 28% from 1970, and 20% declines, on average, in housing, education, and health budgets.

Without Pinochet's glorious coup there would have been no welfare services of any kind left. Allende was wrecking an economy that was already wrecked.

which hit 26% during the slump of 1982-1985 and peaked at 30%.

So? The country was going through a reform and necessary structural changes were needed. The same thing happened in Eastern Europe. A switch from a centrally planned economy to a market economy is bound to cause short-term problems. Look at the situation now. As said, Chile is the most prosperous South-American country with extensive welfare programs.

The income distribution became more regressive, with the wealthiest 5% receiving 25% of the total national income in 1972 compared to 50% a mere 3 years later.

Yes, if the rich are not allowed to get richer no one is going to get richer. After all - the peasants in Europe weren't exactly enjoying a high standard of living until the bourgeoise was allowed to pursue their selfish interests.

Malnutrition affected one child out of two, and three people out of five, and infant mortality rates skyrocketed.

This may have been the case for a few years after the coup. As for today, Chile has the lowest infant mortality rate of all South-American countries.

Furthermore, because of monopolies created by the junta, many small and medium-sized businesses went bust or were severely curtailed, adding to the general economic malaise of the working class.

This is true but state monopolies were mostly sold during and after Pinochet.

So hooray for Uncle Milty! He certainly showed the way to run an economy...into the ground.

There isn't a single sane economist on the planet who'd agree with the idiotism you're spewing out.

You know, it's fine if people don't agree with Ron Paul's platform, and if you believe we should disregard parts of the Constitution that clash with personal political agendas. But I'm really getting tired of comments like, "...he wants every positive function of government to vanish, he wants what amounts to a police state in place to keep the rest of the world out, all out of fear of those strangers with different customs and ideas." It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Paul's position, and an attempt to marginalize him with inaccurate, emotionally charged rhetoric.

The main positive function of government is to protect our rights and liberties. That was its purpose when our Constitution was created. The other claims in this quote are completely unfounded. Ron Paul supports a "police state"? How is that possible, given Paul's "no government" stance? Paul also simply wants to enforce our nation's current immigration laws. Is that so horrible? Personally, I want the laws to become more liberal, as I think we should be letting more people in who simply want to work towards a better life for them and their families. Paul has also since decided that the concept of a border wall is unrealistic and a bad idea.

I understand that a lot of liberal-minded individuals see Paul's ideology as a threat, but I believe that this arises from a failure to understand where he's coming from. I've yet to understand why so many liberal and so-called conservative individuals feel as though it's not only palatable to disregard the Constitution, but necessary as well. While it's true that "selfish individualism" is a trademark of the old libertarian guard (or at least a stereotype), modern libertarianism is born largely out of a belief that true freedom works, is mandated by our Constitution, and that mainstream political parties are recklessly grabbing power in order to forward their particular visions of "good", while setting the stage for a horrible abuse of said power that will dwarf anything that Nixon or Bush have been accused of doing. When you give a government the power to do good, you give them the power to do evil.

Kevin Carson:
I don't see Pinochet's policies as very "libertarian."

Certainly not all of them were. However, he did reverse the direction of the economy from a centrally planned to a market economy. Also, many of the important reforms were carried out by his successors.

They included, among other things, reversing land reforms and returning land--that rightfully belonged to the peasants--to latifundistas based on quasi-feudal titles.

Land reforms that involve "returning" land to peasants may not be a good thing as Mugabe's Zimbabwe has demonstrated. They may be heavily unskilled which means less food production. Also, as for who really owned these lands in the first place, it's always hard to determine.

When you privatise anything, it should be done so that whatever is being privatised eventually ends up in the hands of those who're able to make the most out of it. In the case of land reform this means that the peasants should have the right to sell their property to private enterprises, including Western multinationals.

2) use the World Bank debt to enslave the country like the company stores enslaved miners, and blackmail it into a "atructural adjustment program" by which it auctions off the roads and utilities to crony capitalists

Yes, this is of course the wrong way. The WB has got nothing to do with libertarianism. It's a government owned institution that provides loans to the kind of countries that would never be supported by private banks.

Finally, there's nothing very "libertarian" about disappearing and torturing labor organizers, and leaving them in ditches with their faces hacked off.

Who said there was?

Not that I have much sympathy for these activists who think it's okay for the government to seize people's property.

On a separate topic, you ought to be careful putting forth the Pacific Rim countries as libertarian utopias.

There isn't a single fully libertarian society on Earth. However, we can distinguish relatively libertarian economies from oppressed economies. These are certainly not some libertarian utopias but still fine examples of libertarianism working in practice.

Without Pinochet's glorious coup there would have been no welfare services of any kind left. Allende was wrecking an economy that was already wrecked.

Pinochet's "glorious coup" which killed 3,000 people and imprisoned an order of magnitude more. What a loathsome fuckwit you are for characterizing anything which led to such terror and sorrow as "glorious". I'm certainly glad that this is in record, because it stands as a giant neon sign proclaiming "This is how contemptible you'd have to be to believe what I do."

Euphemism of "glorious coup" aside, are you saying it necessarily follows that if one does, somehow, believe that Chile's free market reforms did eventually benefit the country that they must also by necessity fully support and agree with Pinochet's tactics for repressing opposition?

Surely not, nor do I suspect that was Mikko's intent. Given that Mikko has come off otherwise as a rather even-keeled type (despite your political/economic differences of opinion), does it really make sense to pick up your interpretation and run with it rather than clarifying whether it was perhaps intended as some form of sarcasm, or are you just trying to be antagonistic?

Euphemism of "glorious coup" aside, are you saying it necessarily follows that if one does, somehow, believe that Chile's free market reforms did eventually benefit the country that they must also by necessity fully support and agree with Pinochet's tactics for repressing opposition?

In other words, let's leave out the relevant characterization which forms the basis for me saying what I did. Nothing in Chile's free market reforms required a coup, and actually worked better without one, so I can only conclude that anyone who refers to a "glorious coup" in Chile is referring to the actual mechanics of the coup: murdering Allende, disappearing/murdering dissidents, imprisoning people in ad hoc concentration camps, and so on.

Given that Mikko has come off otherwise as a rather even-keeled type

As here in message #232, and numerous others: "Either you're a complete jackass or just dishonest."

does it really make sense to pick up your interpretation and run with it rather than clarifying whether it was perhaps intended as some form of sarcasm, or are you just trying to be antagonistic?

Clarifying things with Mikko is to mud-wrestle with a pig, and I don't have the patience for it. Why should I treat him as anything other than the rude, contemptible, and arrogant slime he's already revealed himself to be in his prior responses? I do believe that he was entirely serious, because his arrogance is so broad that it becomes sociopathic--as long as his ideals are being flattered, and even if the evidence doesn't bear him out (witness his response to me), then it doesn't matter what is going on to the poor and working-class, whom he probably regards as slightly subhuman anyway.

Who said there was?

Not that I have much sympathy for these activists who think it's okay for the government to seize people's property.

It is saying things like this that causes people to think so lowly of libertarians. Comparing torture and murder with redistribution is absurd and offensive. It seems pretty obvious that you think unions are somehow inherently bad because they allow labor some small amount of power in the market, which "distorts" wages.

Can we just move on from Ron Paul? He's a douche. Ross Perot had more supporters.

Ron Paul is not popular.

As for true natural monopolies (non-excludable public goods with a free rider problem), I think

Whatever you think of them, they occur. Thus Jim's statement was false, and his bleating protests are intellectually dishonest. But then he's a libertarian, and you can't be a libertarian without being intellectually dishonest.

Ron Paul is not popular.

Exactly. He polls in the single digits. Just because his few supporters are insanely vocal is no reason to give him more credence than candidates with a much larger base of support and a much greater chance of running the country. It would make far more sense to put this kind of analysis into the positions of Guiliani, or Romney, or Clinton, or Obama, rather than spend this kind of effort on a marginal kook with no chance of winning the nomination, much less the presidency.

Unfortunately, most of the mainstream candidates don't have solid policy proposals to discuss. We could talk about Hillary's healthcare proposal, but that's just basically $120 billion a year to the insurance companies annually. She said oil prices will drop "just because she's elected" and the oil-producing countries will slash prices to prevent her from enacting Manhattan-project levels of alternative energy research.

Of course, we could have Obama, backed by Clinton-era staffers and similar corporate sponsors. Edwards? There might be "two Americas" but the guy living in a 30,000 sqft house and riding around in a private train isn't from the same America as me. His health-care proposal is special: treatment would be mandatory.

the guy living in a 30,000 sqft house and riding around in a private train isn't from the same America as me

Name me one national politician polling more than 1% who isn't wealthy.

Its his mandatory health-care treatments that creep me out; I find his wealth and hypocritical class-warfare rhetoric simply amusing (well, dangerous to the extent people believe him).

But go ahead and remind everyone how rich the 'front-runner' lawyers are... My original point was that Washington D.C. isn't suited to serve local interests like schools and medicine and shouldn't be trusted with such public wealth and power as we have given up in the last 20-30 years.

Despite Paul's (significant) shortcomings, he nicely sums up why I'll still vote for him:

"I don't want to run your life. We all have different values. I wouldn't know how to do it, I don't have the authority under the Constitution, and I don't have the moral right ... I don't want to run the economy. People run the economy in a free society ... I don't want to run the world ... We don't need to be imposing ourselves around the world."

From Brian Doherty's Reason article: http://www.reason.com/news/show/123905.html

No, he wants the state government to run your life, outlaw abortion, etc.

So, apparently once you've earned a certain amount of money, you are no longer allowed to sympathize with the plight of the lower class. Unless you give up all of said money and live an ascetic life and run an ascetic political campaign. Sounds unworkable to me.

It reminds me of all those ridiculous attempts to smear Al Gore because he lives in a big (carbon neutral) house or because he ate some Chilean Sea Bass at a party once. We're not into cults of personality, and we can distinguish between a person's personal life and their public policy.

Nullifidian:
What a loathsome fuckwit you are for characterizing anything which led to such terror and sorrow as "glorious".

If you can't recognize that Pinochet's coup saved Chile from an economic disaster (which would have made that 3000 look pretty modest) despite the fact that he killed some people (3000 is pretty lame compared to his Stalinist counterparts in Cambodia, China, the USSR and so on) then I really cannot help you.

Nothing in Chile's free market reforms required a coup

Except removing Salvador Allende, a criminal, from power.

I'm going to use all of Mikko's justifications if I ever need to kill someone.

"You see Your Honour, if I didn't kill Mrs. Duncan and appropriate her uncashed Social Assistance cheques, all of Western Civilisation would have been plunged into chaos leading to the inevitable death of millions. Besides, one old broad with a walker is a spit in the bucket compared to the fifty-seven people I shot in that bank heist--oops, can we strike that last comment?"

Glorious indeed.

At the appeal:

"Besides, Your Honour, I killed her after watching her continue to cross the street after the light changed.

Well, don't you see? She was A CRIMINAL!"

Thanks for the laugh, Mikko.

Uh, you were kidding, weren't you?

Mikko wasn't telling a joke, he is one.

Nullifidian:
"Libertarian" emerged in Europe as a synonym for "anarchist". It's only in America where you have neo-feudalists misappropriating the term to refer to their own conception of laissez-faire.

Anarchism cannot exist without private property. In fact, private property is the foundation of anarchism. Otherwise you'll have a bunch of greedy communists seizing your property whenever they feel you're not working for the "common good". Left libertarianism is a joke.

Brownian, OM:
"You see Your Honour, if I didn't kill Mrs. Duncan and appropriate her uncashed Social Assistance cheques"

If you cannot see the difference between Mrs. Duncan cashing a welfare check and a man who's inflating the money supply, seizing property, being friends with militant communists, causing shortages of food etc. then I really can't help you.

If you cannot see the difference between Mrs. Duncan cashing a welfare check and a man who's inflating the money supply, seizing property, being friends with militant communists, causing shortages of food etc. then I really can't help you.

And waiting for the next election was not an option?

I'd also like some evidence for the deliberate food shortages. Further, I'd like to see that the inflation was worse than the deflation Milton Friedman later wrought.

My original point was that Washington D.C. isn't suited to serve local interests like schools and medicine and shouldn't be trusted with such public wealth and power as we have given up in the last 20-30 years.

Was that a point? Or just an assertion (as another libertarian here put it, "Libertarians believe")?

Comment 442:

through several paragraphs, you manage to elucidate what I thought was the obvious implied point I was making.

*shrug*

I guess I should be more specific next time, so as not to have the obvious explained to myself.

Indeed, what i was hoping for was NOT an answer to the obvious from yourself, but rather seeing whether mikko had any comprehension of what I meant by that.

I wanted to explain it to him, because I thought he had clearly not understood it.

"Authoritarianism need not be capitalist, it just generally is. "

Empirically false. In modern times the Nazis, Communists, Mugabes of the world prove this all to clearly. In the past there was no capitalism and it was mostly authoritarianism.

If you have a sufficiently purist view of what is and is not capitalism, sure... by analogy, that would mean there has never been a communist country either...

Socialism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover as history proves over and over. It's happening with Chavez as we speak.

Communism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover. Socialism by definition wants any takeover to happen by election, not by revolution; that makes it harder. Chávez tried anyway, and, lo & behold, he (narrowly) lost. He's foaming at the mouth, but he can't do anything against that, and he won't do anything against that. That would be majorly bad PR, and he knows that if his PR gets too bad, he's in serious trouble.

A few decades ago, the Soviet Union said it wasn't communist, it was socialist. This was at once a reference to strict Marxist theory (where socialism and communism are stages in the "inevitable" development of a society, and the USSR had only reached the stage of socialism) and a propaganda coup (see above for the difference between the ideologies of communism and socialism). Various US conservatives took this propaganda coup and ran with it, because it allowed them to equate socialists with communists (and everyone to their left with socialists). This seems to be the definition you are using.

Anarchism cannot exist without private property. In fact, private property is the foundation of anarchism.

I'm rather amazed at your ability to become more and more wrong the more you say. Anarchism certainly can exist without private property. In fact, without a government, there is no such thing as private property. The first role of the government is to enforce property rights. The foundation of Anarchism is the idea that we need not have a government to run society, not private property.

For a truly excellent and recent discussion on Anarchy, I recommend Cato Unbound's August discussion optic:

"August 2007: Who Needs Government? Pirates, Collapsed States, and the Possibility of Anarchy"

http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/august-2007/

Here is a teaser that mentions private property within the context of anarchy:

"On the other hand, most consequentialist defenses of anarchy are purely speculative. In forging responses to how a stateless society could cope with every conceivable contingency it might confront, anarchists often offer imaginative conjecture, in some cases bordering on science fiction.

Ironically, the case for anarchy derives its strength from empirical evidence, not theory.

Most of the world, for most of its history, has existed without effective governments. As noted economic historian Joel Mokyr points out, "In England," for example, "there was not even a professional police force to protect private property" until the 19th century."

I didn't get into the December topic, but Cato Unbuond often has really great topics that are presented in a format that allows for some nice depth of argument. The anarchy discussion was really fascinating.

As noted economic historian Joel Mokyr points out, "In England," for example, "there was not even a professional police force to protect private property" until the 19th century."

Which, of course, is completely different from saying "There was no protection for private property", unless you believe that property theft wasn't punished by state officials until the 19th century.

As a skeptic and a science blog, i was happy to stumble across your blog. I checked out a post or two and added it to my RSS feed before heading off for the holiddays.

When i got back, one of the first posts i noticed was an anti ron paul diatribe. Now, on political tests i score between liberal and libertarian, and i probably won't vote for ron paul in any case, i think he's too religious, for one things, but i also noticed you posted and anti-hillary clinton letter you received, and, frankly, the main difference between his political statement and yours was that his was longer and contained some neat colors.

Just making some random statements about "greed" and "self-centeredness" and describing someone else's position as "fecal" is as open-minded and fact-based as a creationist stumbling across your blog and using the same sort of language and rhetoric; in other words, you don't seem appreciably different than the people you're opposing, in the language, arguments, and personal attacks you're making.

David Marjanović:
And waiting for the next election was not an option?

Allende was relatively popular even when the country was going downhill. Nazis were given power by the people. Chavez was re-elected...

I simply don't see how being democratic provides an excuse for nationalizations etc. Democracy is important only for as long as it maintains the freedoms we now have after centuries of nothing but crap. How much would you value a democratic decision that calls for your imprisonment for voicing your opinion?

I'd also like some evidence for the deliberate food shortages.

I didn't say deliberate. Many socialists don't understand things like cause & effect. But being an idiot is no excuse for ruining a country.

Further, I'd like to see that the inflation was worse than the deflation Milton Friedman later wrought.

Deflation was needed. Inflation was not. Allende printed money to pay for all those wage increases and social programs.

coathangrrr:
Anarchism certainly can exist without private property. In fact, without a government, there is no such thing as private property. The first role of the government is to enforce property rights.

You cannot be against private property without having a hierarchical government of some kind.

For example, in a stateless system companies may be formed spontaneously by free individuals, and you cannot stop that without having a government that uses (or threatens to use) force on individuals. From what I know, the so called "anarchists" don't allow using force for any other purposes than self defense.

People will not give up their property for the common good. In the kind of a perverted anarchy you're advocating you'd have gangs of looters socializing other people's property by using force. This isn't the kind of liberation from hierarchies anarchists are advocating. You'd have exactly the kind of a system that now exists in countries like North Korea where others tell you what you're supposed to do with your life.

From what I know, some anarchists actually support things like freedom of religion. But such a thing cannot exist if people are not allowed to own bibles, churches etc. Freedom of speech cannot exist if looters are allowed to socialize news stations for the common good.

Private property can exist without a government. You'd have private security services, for example, protecting your property from aggressors.

You people are brainwashed as well as ill-informed. Can I get a BAH...BAH. You're all a bunch of Communist sheep. I should know, I used to be a Liberal.

Spurge said:

Sure independent.

I am going to be able to hire a lawyer and beat a company with an army of lawyers and billions to spend.

If you can find others hurt by this big company, you just might be able to win through class action lawsuit. There's your army to retaliate against the company's army.

Mikko Sandt, that was a good post. Also, it is a whole lot easier to deter aggressors against your property if you have a personal WMD like microbial weapons and nanite-weapons. Given technological trends in this Century, these weapons will probably be available for home manufacture by the mid to late Twenty-First Century. Hell, even a home-made guided anti-tank/anti-aircraft missile can be helpful in enforcing individual sovereignty. There will never be a World Government.

Eat that Statists!

coathangrrr said:

No, he wants the state government to run your life, outlaw abortion, etc.

Then don't live in that state. After all, I have decided not to live all my life in the People's Nanny-State of Kalifornia.

Huh, no replies yet eh? Apparently you statists want to ignore the fact that this Century doesn't favor you. The Nanny-State isn't worth FUCKING SHIT when its enforcers are easy to kill. That's right, EASY TO KILL!

Better not pass any more god-damned regulations.

Ken Cope:

We did, thank you. Libertarians and Objectivists are just another pair of cults with some overlap in membership.

Oh really, I would prefer their "cults" than your cult of "smiley-face" fascist statism. Besides, the technological trends favor mine over yours in the mid to late Twenty-First Century. Your enforcers are DEAD.

OOops! I forgot to answer PZ's question!
Q: Why is Ron Paul so popular?
A: Because a lot of people agree with his ideas, that, and "cult of personality".

Anarchism cannot exist without private property. In fact, private property is the foundation of anarchism. Otherwise you'll have a bunch of greedy communists seizing your property whenever they feel you're not working for the "common good". Left libertarianism is a joke.

No, actually you are a joke; or rather a long-standing work of performance art based around the concept of self-referential irony.

Namely telling me, an anarchist, what is the foundation of anarchism, on the principle that "greedy communists" can seize the fruit of one's efforts whenever they unilaterally determine one is doing it wrong, all the while supporting a coup which basically turned the property of the people of Chile--the country itself--into the private fiefdom of Pinochet, his high-ranking supporters, and American corporations.

You people are brainwashed as well as ill-informed. Can I get a BAH...BAH. You're all a bunch of Communist sheep. I should know, I used to be a Liberal.

So you used to be a liberal, but you were unaware that liberals hate and despise all forms of leftism? And you were further unaware that Communists reciprocated by calling reformism "socialism in words and fascism in deeds" and officially declared social democracy "social fascism"?

That is, incidentally, the theme of the latest spit-up from Jonah Goldberg, whose adherence to the Stalinist party line from the sinecure of one of the nation's most conservative and anti-communist magazines is truly vintage irony.

Liberarianism is only justified if social classes and political states are superseded.

You may see the government and imagine its holding us back from anarchy.

I see Somalia: no government, and anarchy.

I see a government that protects the ones who are dumping toxins in our rivers and even rewards them with contracts and tax cuts.

Then you need better government, not weaker government.

Maybe you see the income tax and think its progressive, because that's what they call it in school. I look at the actual effective rates and I realize its the poor and middle class who are paying the most while the investors walk away with a stack of cash from their tax lawyer's office.

So make the income tax more progressive, then, instead of taking it all away.

"It doesn't work as well as it could work if we actually cared about its implementation! So it must be destroyed!!!111eleventyone11!!"

I thought only Austria's extreme right was stupid enough to make such arguments.

Well, the Dept. of Education - does it help? Have our students become better informed over the last 20 some years of its existence? We both want better education, but we disagree on how to achieve it. I think it has to be local, and you can't expect a great result from any top-down system homogenized for 300,000,000 people.

Has it ever occurred to you that there's a world outside the USA?

Why does it work there? Why are the local schoolboards of the USA so unique? It is, after all, normal that the curriculum is fixed on a countrywide level by the ministry of education, and in all rich countries it seems to work.

Exactly. And IMO, the major lesson to be learned from this is the power & innovation of relatively independent states acting in cooperative competition.

Is France's health system better than Germany's? Is there a *best* system in Europe that all the other states should be forced to adopt? No, its the competition and flexibility of independent states that creates the boom of progress. This is what put America to the top, and its the increasingly totalitarian top-down system that will take us down like the Soviet Union fell.

Your way of thinking is bizarre. The health care systems of the European countries don't compete with each other. And yes, if any of them turns out to be best (which, as you note, hasn't happened so far), the EU should be lobbied to make all its members adopt it.

And what top exactly?

Hooray for Putin correctly (and obviously) pointing out that the US putting missile silos in Germany is just like the Cuban missile crisis.

I'm not saying those silos are necessarily good for anything... but you know as well as Putin that Putin is making an incredible ass of himself by saying that. (Except in the eyes of the voters of his party, in whom he instills fear, just the way Fearless Flightsuit does.)

I have no sense of obligation to support people on welfare or the old guy next door that needs a hip replacement.

It's an investment for you.

Although I also differ with Ron Paul on most key issues, I felt compelled to support him because of his obviously apparent integrity.

Most telling to me is that he let himself be drafted into military service, when he could have easily applied for, and received a student deferment.

Killing and dying for the domino theory speculation is not integrity. It is ignorance, stupidity, or both.

He also has a record of voting against congressional pay-raises, and even declined his own congressional pension.

That's more like it.

The primary function of the Department of Education is subsidizing private banks to charge students above-market rates on student loans.

Student loans shouldn't need to exist at all, if you know what I mean.

When it comes to fiat currency, we have had two previous examples of paper money that were abolished in favor of a return sound money.

And you really don't think there's a reason why the whole world has "fiat currency"?

I don't think it's just the capitalistic logic behind the "fiat" part (money is worth whatever you're willing to pay for it). I think comment 221 is right.

Socialism tries to handicap the gifted rather than level out the playing field.

You're talking about communism, not about socialism. China abolished the bourgeoisie; Sweden has abolished the proletariat.

Inflation is an insidious and deceptive means of taxation, and we shouldn't allow it.

Given the choice between a little deflation and two or three times that much inflation, I'll take the latter every day of the week and twice on sundays. After all, Chile under Pinochet was not a nice place to live, even if you kept your mouth shut.

I never argued for "fixing" nations, mainly because it rarely works

The Marshall Plan worked.

In hindsight, it is something that libertarians should have welcomed, because it has resulted in the USA having more and richer trading partners, which has made the USA richer, too. It was an investment. But it required foresight, and, like evolution, the free market lacks foresight...

I think it's pretty funny that people are lambasting Libertarianism with made-up stories that the "corporations will take over!" And we'll have stuff like Enron happen. Oops, Enron (and all the other corporate scandals) already happened without Libertarianism. And so did Valdez. And so did Microsoft crushing competitors and keeping antitrust cases in court without settlement for years and years. Et al.

Hey, let's all blame the Libertarians for Wal-Mart's and Martha Stewart's Asian sweatshops! Because we know sweatshops are only byproducts of Libertarianism!

All of this sans Libertarianism.

In fact, most of the things you dread happening under Libertarianism are actually happening today. Not all, but lots of them.

Oh man.

All these things happen where there's already too much libertarianism and too little government protection of capitalism. Yes, you've read that right: capitalism must be protected from itself. Competition must be protected, because it is selected against. Leave the market to itself, and monopolies will form (whether by competition or by megamergers). A very important function of governments, including supranational organizations like the EU, is to keep competition and thus capitalism alive.

Another function is to make sure no entrepreneur is dumber than Henry Ford, who justified the higher wages he paid by pointing out who was going to buy his products. In other words, to protect capitalism from human stupidity -- again.

OF COURSE you will have greedy people with sweatshops. OF COURSE you will have corruption. Etc., etc. People are people and you'll have that under any system.

Then why don't we have any over here?

Libertarians believe the market will correct for that

And this religious belief is justified because?

just like it does today

It doesn't.

I'd like to add that giving to the needy is not compassion if it's mandatory. Who is more compassionate: the person who gives to charity causes because it's right, or the person who gives because the government forces them to?

Why should I care? Why shouldn't I rather care about the results?

Also, I think people should have the right not to be dependent on others' compassion.

Monopolies are creations of the state, not of markets.

You know plenty of counterexamples. Either that, or you have Alzheimer's.

It is also entirely possible that one individual or group could own all or the majority of land in an area and thus have de facto control of food and transport of food.

There have been, and AFAIK still are, plenty of small 3rd-world countries of which, say, 80 % is owned by the richest, say, four families. Add a hundred years and a few dynastic marriages...

I said "rarely." And I am not a libertarian.

As far as I remember at this time of the night, I wasn't directly talking to you. I often take a quote and use it to illustrate a point to the whole community...

What, only from 380 to 427 in about 24 hours? Someone's slacking here. Good, that means I can keep up with reading :-)

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The solution is not libertarianism, but the control of money-driven corruption in government. Unfortunately, that's difficult in the U.S. because of the absurd Supreme Court declaration that spending is speech.

Yet another case where the USA are almost unique: in places with code law instead of case law -- and no place, not even Louisiana, has ever introduced case law when given the choice --, such decisions are made in parliament (or by referendum if a large change to the constitution is required), not by a court. Such places have a constitution court which does nothing but decide if laws are constitutional.

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"Your way of thinking is bizarre. The health care systems of the European countries don't compete with each other. And yes, if any of them turns out to be best (which, as you note, hasn't happened so far), the EU should be lobbied to make all its members adopt it."

Your way of thinking is equally bizarre, and exactly why we need markets and federalism. There never is one, static "best" way--the best way is always evolving, but your way is one sure path to stagnation. Let's make everyone adopt the current "best" model (which will be judged by . . . whom? A referendum in all countries as to which one has the best health care system?)

As I wrote and you quoted: so far, none of the ways has been shown to be the best. IMHO it is entirely possible that no way is best, or that, as you suggest, which way is the best depends on ever-changing circumstances.

However, if "best" is defined as "best price-performance ratio at an acceptable price", then it is entirely imaginable (not proven -- just imaginable) that one of the ways is objectively the best.

As for those slinging around the term "moron", way to go ad hominem.

"Ad hominem argument" is not synonymous with "insult". "X is a genius, so s/he must be right" is an ad hominem argument. "X is wrong and therefore shown to be a moron" is not one. "X is a moron and therefore wrong" is one.

Libertarians believe

I love it when libertarians start their "explanations" with "Libertarians believe". Is it a testable and tested hypothesis, or is it a dogma that needs no justification? If the former, why introduce it as if it were the latter? I know what you believe. I want to know how you reached your conclusions.

They don't directly compete, but if the people in England hear about some advantage in the French system they will be encouraged to raise the issue with their representatives. If it gets bad enough, people can vote with their feet and move to another state.

And how many are ever going to do that?

With your other point, you are of course right that if any of the healthcare systems ever turns out to be the best in all respects, the voters will do the lobbying I mentioned, either at the national level or at the EU level (I should have mentioned the former possibility, which of course makes the latter unnecessary).

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Myers comments are ignorant because he is totally unaware of the history of libertarian works. It's like he never heard of the great libertarian Lysander Spooner or of the efforts of Milton Freedman to help third world countries.

What the fuck. Milton "deflation in Pinochet's Chile" Friedman!?! Some "help"!

Heck it's like he discovered that some Jews were for capitalism and then wrote:

You choose to be a Libertarian. You don't choose to be a Jew.

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Crappy excuses for failing in life.

And people who fail in life must be punished additionally, or what?

I'm a fan of democracy because of its ability to fix its own mistakes (a market economy is capable of the same)

I agree, with one little detail added: Democracies must have a constitution to prevent the majority from installing a dictator who destroys democracy -- from, as you put it, "putting limits on others". Free markets must have a government to prevent a superior competitor from gaining a monopoly who destroys competition and thus the free market.

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Economic growth follows market reforms. Not a single country has turned rich simply by providing state-funded education or health care. A welfare state without free markets doesn't exist. There isn't a single state that is prosperous and not economically free. There isn't a single state that is economically free and not prosperous.

I haven't bothered looking at any data, but so far, I agree.

There isn't a single state that is economically free and not prosperous.

Somalia.

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btw, do show me an extant democracy. anywhere.

I guess you mean a direct democracy, where all voters vote directly on every law. After all, representative democracies abound; according to the "goddamn piece of paper", even the USA is one...

Switzerland is mostly, though not purely, a direct democracy: most laws have to pass a referendum.

Something even more basic, however, exists: the whole village -- all "voters" -- sits down at one table and discusses and discusses and discusses till everyone is convinced of what to do. This is found, for example, among the pygmies in the Congo rainforest and among the farmers in the highlands of New Guinea. Of course, in communities larger than a few hundred people this is simply not feasible (at least not without the Internet); this is why representative democracies exist.

Even the current subprime crisis was in part caused by the FED that kept pumping money into the American economy when it should have done the reverse.

Unlike other national banks, the US Federal Reserve is a private corporation...

Practically all cases of resources being wasted like there's no tomorrow are fine examples of a situation known as Tragedy of the Commons, a result of resources not being owned by anyone, or being owned by everyone. Any organization that is concerned with our resource use should take the enforcement of private property as its number one policy.

Interesting point, but whose private property shall all the fish in the sea become?

(This is one example of a renewable resource that we are exploiting faster, much faster, than it can renew itself.)

If you cannot see the difference between Mrs. Duncan cashing a welfare check and a man who's inflating the money supply, seizing property, being friends with militant communists, causing shortages of food etc. then I really can't help you.

And waiting for the next election was not an option?

I'd also like some evidence for the deliberate food shortages. Further, I'd like to see that the inflation was worse than the deflation Milton Friedman later wrought.

My original point was that Washington D.C. isn't suited to serve local interests like schools and medicine and shouldn't be trusted with such public wealth and power as we have given up in the last 20-30 years.

Was that a point? Or just an assertion (as another libertarian here put it, "Libertarians believe")?

Comment 442:

through several paragraphs, you manage to elucidate what I thought was the obvious implied point I was making.

*shrug*

I guess I should be more specific next time, so as not to have the obvious explained to myself.

Indeed, what i was hoping for was NOT an answer to the obvious from yourself, but rather seeing whether mikko had any comprehension of what I meant by that.

I wanted to explain it to him, because I thought he had clearly not understood it.

"Authoritarianism need not be capitalist, it just generally is. "

Empirically false. In modern times the Nazis, Communists, Mugabes of the world prove this all to clearly. In the past there was no capitalism and it was mostly authoritarianism.

If you have a sufficiently purist view of what is and is not capitalism, sure... by analogy, that would mean there has never been a communist country either...

Socialism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover as history proves over and over. It's happening with Chavez as we speak.

Communism is the perfect excuse for an authoritarian takeover. Socialism by definition wants any takeover to happen by election, not by revolution; that makes it harder. Chávez tried anyway, and, lo & behold, he (narrowly) lost. He's foaming at the mouth, but he can't do anything against that, and he won't do anything against that. That would be majorly bad PR, and he knows that if his PR gets too bad, he's in serious trouble.

A few decades ago, the Soviet Union said it wasn't communist, it was socialist. This was at once a reference to strict Marxist theory (where socialism and communism are stages in the "inevitable" development of a society, and the USSR had only reached the stage of socialism) and a propaganda coup (see above for the difference between the ideologies of communism and socialism). Various US conservatives took this propaganda coup and ran with it, because it allowed them to equate socialists with communists (and everyone to their left with socialists). This seems to be the definition you are using.