Tea Party

[El Mamerro]

To continue this format...

 

On logic:

 

I think the supercollider example is the closest to the context I had in my mind, which I think is how most people view the tax system and are generally OK paying up. The other example is a different context that would call for a different attitude towards what I'm willing to part with.

 

On hypocrisy:

 

I'm still not sure what action it is that I'm not consenting to, that I am in turn forcing on others.

 

There's pleeeenty of stuff in the government that I have no interest in paying for, and am downright opposed to, but there's also stuff I like, and if they have to come bundled together, I'm still OK ponying up the money. Lots of us get into this kind of agreements with phone companies and other subscription services (deal with AT&T's shittiness if you want an iPhone), the only difference being a lack of coercion. Which lets be honest, doesn't feel like coercion to most people, and doesn't register the negative psychological effects that the concept of coercion implies. As far as I can tell, most people feel vastly more coerced by private companies that they willingly enter into agreements with, than being told by the government to pay tax.

 

I don't feel that people are just "used to" coercive practice, as if they've been taking it up the ass so long they don't feel it any more, I just think it hasn't gotten to the point were people feel truly coerced into something they don't want. Cause for the most part, they do want it.

 

On morality:

 

I don't particularly feel that any and all types of coercion is immoral. The guiding principle of my moral value structure is to work and believe in things that diminish or eliminate suffering for humanity. Therefore, I'm ready to make concessions towards certain types of coercive practice that I believe would lead to that ideal, kind of the same way I'm OK with kids being coerced by their parents to eat their vegetables and be respectful to others even when they don't want to, because good health and social skills lead to peace and wellbeing both for the individual and for everyone as a whole (I can see AoD's head exploding from over here as I type this).

 

 

Speaking of AoD, on Colorado Springs...

 

I hate bifurcating discussions so I'm just gonna drop this particular one and let it be, I just wanted to bring up the existence of a place where some of these ideas can be tested out:

 

I understand that prevention from entering into competition greatly hinders the process of picking up the slack, but that's limited to select services (I, for one, am very happy that responsibility for law enforcement can't be privatized); there are plenty of trouble areas popping up that are open to privatization, and others that citizens are being asked to man up and take care of themselves. I'm curious to see how it all develops.

[angelofdeath]

Of course there was much more to this story, but I wanted to illustrate how this 'intervention begets intervention' principle can be applied in other contexts. And, further, that it can be used to justify seemingly any action.

 

indeed.

mises talks at length about this.

the first little intervention results in a distortion that calls for more intervention. stated differently... government passes a law, it always has unintended consequences. more laws are then debated and passed to deal with the unintended consequences. this goes on forever.

 

which is why it is laughable that people use the 'deregulation' argument as the cause of the financial collapse and blame it on laissez faire capitalism, when the only one to blame is the government. they have created a climate since atleast the great depression of regulating everything about the economy down to how much water your shower head puts out and then people, with a straight face, try to tell others that 'deregulation' is the cause of any and all problems.

[angelofdeath]

On hypocrisy:

 

I'm still not sure what action it is that I'm not consenting to, that I am in turn forcing on others.

 

i think its quite apparent.

you are saying you want to pay the littlest amount in taxes, yet you think everyone should pay more and you will only pay more if everyone else does. why not lead by example? if you think government services are the end all be all of efficiency, then just stroke off a check. why try to get away with paying as little as possible?

its just a hypocritical position is all.

 

Lots of us get into this kind of agreements with phone companies and other subscription services (deal with AT&T's shittiness if you want an iPhone), the only difference being a lack of coercion.

 

 

lets just make it perfectly clear that the aggressive coercion, (as opposed to defensive coercion) is what separates freedom from slavery. it is a BIG difference.

 

Which lets be honest, doesn't feel like coercion to most people, and doesn't register the negative psychological effects that the concept of coercion implies. As far as I can tell, most people feel vastly more coerced by private companies that they willingly enter into agreements with, than being told by the government to pay tax.

 

this is true. most people dont even know what aggression is, as was indicated in the exchange between theo and myself. theo has no concept of what it is and thinks governments in general commit no aggression.

 

most people dont recognize this coercion from the government in life because they dont know any different. its like trying to tell a fish he is in water.

 

there is a disconnect in your last statement. it is not coercion if you contract voluntarily with the company. the government does not ask you to contract with them voluntarily for services.

so it is impossible for people to be 'coerced' by a private company unless said private company commits aggression against the person, which is illegal and a violation of the persons natural rights. if a private company holds someone at gun point to force them to go to their store and buy goods, this private companies agent will go to jail, whereas the government can do it all it wants to.

 

huge difference.

 

 

On morality:

 

I don't particularly feel that any and all types of coercion is immoral. The guiding principle of my moral value structure is to work and believe in things that diminish or eliminate suffering for humanity.

 

since we are getting into deep philosophical territory i guess we should distinguish between aggressive coercion and defensive coercion. for instance, if a guy breaks into my house and tries to rape my wife, i am more than fully justified in coercing this guy against his will by the barrel of an AR15 to his knees, zip tying his hands, gagging him and calling the police to arrest him.

i am not justified in violating anyones elses property or forcing anyone to do something they do not consent to if they have not violated my rights.

 

 

Therefore, I'm ready to make concessions towards certain types of coercive practice that I believe would lead to that ideal, kind of the same way I'm OK with kids being coerced by their parents to eat their vegetables and be respectful to others even when they don't want to, because good health and social skills lead to peace and wellbeing both for the individual and for everyone as a whole (I can see AoD's head exploding from over here as I type this).

 

its nice to hear someone admit that they do favor the use of aggressive violence against someone instead of trying to conceal it.

 

i dont think you were making the comparison, BUT all these topics have to do with adults, not kids. so the theory of natural rights is slightly different for kids. parents obviously have a right to raise their kids and tell them what to eat. the real technical issue of this is when is the cut off age.... but there is for another thread.

[the.crooked]

regarding ya'lls qualm with the notion that intervention beget intervention, it's a function of complexity in any institution. just gonna happen. we are finite beings, and we make finite systems. iterative revision of a complex system will happen be it in an implicit or explicit system. it's the nature of knowledge and systems based off it.

[the.crooked]

further, moral justification is solely relative. an example (you might not consider it one of morals, but take the form and see how it works) "what's the best way to get to the store" "well if you take street x, you can avoid the traffic on highway y"

 

the issue here is that the words which specify the value of a given outcome are relative to the rational which is espousing the proposed plan to get to that outcome. morality and aesthetics are in the same boat philosophically and epistemologically, not so much traditionally tied to notions of logic or rationality.

[Removed]

On logic:

 

I think the supercollider example is the closest to the context I had in my mind, which I think is how most people view the tax system and are generally OK paying up. The other example is a different context that would call for a different attitude towards what I'm willing to part with.

 

I agreed with you that consent for taxation towards the purchase of a supercollider was not illogical, which I said was due to the indivisibility of its value. I disagree that you can use this specific example to extrapolate outwards and justify the entire tax system based on that deduction.

I have thought about my previous argument and perhaps I was using the word illogical loosely, a more appropriate word would have been imprudent. However, I am still interested in the logic of the decision to consent to taxation, which I think the skeleton for an argument, was already built in my previous posts. But in order to continue to forward this argument, it needs to be premised by further assumptions and clarification.

 

To demonstrate the base for this idea I will run through the first part of my previous argument again, adding corresponding reduced notes to the end of each paragraph. All of which should be understood as occurring in absence of coercion as we are discussing voluntary taxation.

 

Previously I argued that your consent for taxation was based on your approval of its given output; schoolbooks, a supercollider, or burning money. I supported this argument by hypothetically reducing the variety of potential outputs of a taxation system to two given outputs; an output that you approved of, and an output which you did not approve of. From this I suggested that in this simplistic hypothetical economy, your consent to be taxed would depend on your approval of the given output.

 

(Consent for taxation= approval of a given output)

 

To be absolute about this assertion I will add another premise, which is that you value the productive use of your time and you expect to be remunerated for its exchange. You have a limited amount of time in which to do the things you enjoy. If you choose to work, you are choosing to work with the understanding you will receive money in exchange. This is as working comes at the expense of doing something else which you could also do without receiving payment. Other constraints aside, if you have worked six hours so far today and you chose to work another three before leaving. It would be logical to suggest that you expect to be paid for the three remaining hours. Of course some people may choose to volunteer their time, but I feel this decision requires a different calculation than that of paying tax as the impact of your time is understood more directly. An issue I will get to a bit further down.

 

(Decision to work=expectation of pay)

 

To also clarify the nature of taxation I will use the simplified example of income tax with the assumption it is based entirely on a steady hourly wage. The process of taxation based on wage income is a transfer of a percentage of the wealth generated by your labour towards any given output. As there is a direct relationship between the time you spend under productive labour and the amount of wealth you can generate, then we can say that taxation of your wealth equates to taxation of your time. In this way, a tax of 30% on your wage income would equate to the volunteering of 30% of your working hours towards any given output. This works the same way as saying that if you reduced your working hours by 30% correspondingly your pay would also reduce by 30%.

 

(Taxation = Transfer of wealth towards a given output)

 

(Wealth = Productive time under labour)

 

(Taxation = Transfer of productive time under labour towards a given output)

 

From this we can say that if you expect payment from the use of your labour/time, you care about its use, and you consent to employ 30% of it towards any given output, this must depend on your approval of this output. So, in a simplified economy where there are two potential outcomes of the transfer of your wealth towards a known output, one you approve of and one you do not. Your logical consent to be taxed must depend upon the approval of a transfer of your productive time towards the approved output. Inversely, if you either did not approve for your time/labour to be taxed, or you did not approve of the output of taxation, then you would logically withdraw consent.

 

(Consent for taxation = Approval of transfer of productive time under labour towards an approved output)

 

(No consent for taxation = Disapproval of transfer of productive time under labour towards an approved output)

 

Or

 

(No consent for taxation= Approval of transfer of productive time under labour towards a disapproved output)

 

Next, to build on this base and justify my original claim we can explore another hypothetical example of taxation where we introduce a second known output of this process.

 

Rather than your labour/time being employed through taxation towards an output of which you approve. It is now employed towards two bundled outputs; one of which you approve of and one of which you don’t, let’s say a supercollider and a war against peaceful people. By introducing positive and negative bundled outputs, and given the previous base assumptions, logically you can only consent to being taxed if you accept that the value of the positive output outweigh the value of the negative output and you are still willing to approve the transfer of your productive time under labour towards the bundle of outputs. Inversely, if the value of the negative output exceeds the value of the positive output then you must withdraw your consent to be taxed.

 

(Consent for taxation = Approval of transfer of productive time under labour towards a bundle of outputs whereby the value of the positive output exceeds the value of the negative output)

 

(No consent for taxation= Disapproval of the transfer of productive time under labour towards a bundle of outputs whereby the value of the positive output exceeds the value of the negative output)

 

Or

 

(No consent for taxation= Approval of transfer of productive time under labour towards a bundle of outputs whereby the value of the negative output exceeds the value of the positive output)

 

Obviously, as the number of bundled outputs increase, the complexity of the cost benefit analysis will also relatively increase. Then, what happens if you simply cannot make this calculation given either too many output factors, or unknown variables? We can represent this situation by building on the previous model. Which was;

 

(Consent for taxation = Approval of transfer of productive time under labour towards a bundle of outputs whereby the value of the positive output exceeds the value of the negative output)

 

This time we will add a third unknown output of taxation which will have to be included in the cost benefit analysis before consent can be given to be taxed. This unknown output represents either incomplete information or unknown information.

 

An example of incomplete information is as follows;

 

Assuming we have access to information about all known taxation outputs via the Federal

budget, we are hardly likely to personally have time to subject them all to a cost benefit analysis revealing the net value of taxation. Instead we have to make this calculation given the information we have time to process, while attempting to factor in the information we know we do not have time to process.

 

An example of an unknown variable is as follows;

 

We may know that 10% of the taxation collected from us will go to the CIA. Yet, while we might guess at what they will do with this money, we do not know what they will do with any certainty. In this situation, it we cannot easily factor this into our logical decision to consent to taxation as we have no tangible way to measure the positive or negative value generated by the CIA .

 

So to return to our model, a cost benefit analysis involving a positive, negative and unknown factor is difficult to evaluate. The outcome would first depend on the net outcome between the difference of the positive and negative factor, secondly and more importantly it would depend on your estimate of the range of potential values of the unknown factor. By consenting to this arrangement you must accept the risk that the unknown factor could swing either in your favour or against it. Furthermore you must also factor into your decision the size of the risk that could swing either way. All of which I would suggest is very difficult and probably beyond the scope of this post at least. *Crooked; I expect you might know a hell of a lot more about this than I do!

 

(Consent for taxation = Approval of transfer of productive time under labour towards a bundle of outputs whereby the value of the positive output exceeds the sum of the value of the negative and unknown output = Acceptance of the risk that your calculation may be wrong, resulting in a range of possibilities from very positive to very negative)

 

So, at this point I will stop exploring the potentialities of this situation and end by making the statement;

 

Within this simplified economy, the introduction of bundled unknown outputs of taxation has limited the ability to make a logical decision to consent to taxation by introducing significant risk, while assuming that your decision to work is based on the expectation of some form of remuneration and that you care about the use of your time/labour.

[Removed]

regarding ya'lls qualm with the notion that intervention beget intervention, it's a function of complexity in any institution. just gonna happen. we are finite beings, and we make finite systems. iterative revision of a complex system will happen be it in an implicit or explicit system. it's the nature of knowledge and systems based off it.

 

 

further, moral justification is solely relative. an example (you might not consider it one of morals, but take the form and see how it works) "what's the best way to get to the store" "well if you take street x, you can avoid the traffic on highway y"

 

the issue here is that the words which specify the value of a given outcome are relative to the rational which is espousing the proposed plan to get to that outcome. morality and aesthetics are in the same boat philosophically and epistemologically, not so much traditionally tied to notions of logic or rationality.

 

Yo Crooked I hear you on these points. You seem to be largely saying that my 'intervention begets intervention' claim is an element of cause and effect. I agree with you, but I think it goes further than this due to the scope and coercive nature of government action. Also regarding morality, my epistemological position is broadly that of constructivism, so while I see that morality is relative, somewhere in there I feel that there is a hardened objective core.

 

 

I could attempt to justify my claims here but I feel like picking one battle at a time is probably a bit more productive haha

 

Thanks for your input though bruz

[Decyferon]

I still don't understand how people think that if you took government intervention out of the equation and put everything into free market - non regulated business hands then you think we would be any better off than how we currently are.

 

Business is about making money for the cheapest cost, so if we privatised the roads to business they would find the cheapest way of doing it, and as they would no longer be regulated they would be able to work as shoddy as they wanted. If you think a business' main aim is to provide a great service then you are just living in cuckoo land. Biggest profit/lowest cost.

 

Without regulation then we would have no recourse when we get fucked over by the business, if they are unregulated, they wouldnt have to tell you about hidden costs/expensive clauses etc. It is through regulation of business that gives you the recourse when a business does you wrong.

 

Without regulation you would have business salesmen making claim with no bearing in reality because you would have removed the regulation that tells them they have to be honest in their claims.

 

I work in Financial services, if the banks etc weren't regulated the service you would recieve would be so much worse than what you currently have, if you don't work in this environment you don't know how much regulation there is. I am glad of the regulation in my workplace, without it I wouldnt work there because it would be a lawless environment where customers would get shafted on the regular with no grounds for recourse because it is the regulations in place that mean you can complain to the company, have it investigated and then have somewhere you can go if you are unsatisfied with the way the complaint was handled.

 

I wish I could say yea, the unregulated free market would be amazing because busiuness would have to provide the best service to attract the customers and everyone would just pay for what they need, when in reality the biggest companies would corner markets, buy out competitors an gradually reduce the service to lower costs and increase their revenue, anyone that thinks that wouldnt happen must be living in some crazy fantasy land.

 

Human nature is greed, business is greed. I have no recourse against these compaines if they aren't regulated and they have cornered the market, I would be forced to use their service or go without, I would rather have government run public services on taxes because at least I have some degree of say in who is running things.

[lord_casek]

Penn Point: Tea Party Is Racist

[angelofdeath]

Business is about making money for the cheapest cost, so if we privatised the roads to business they would find the cheapest way of doing it, and as they would no longer be regulated they would be able to work as shoddy as they wanted. If you think a business' main aim is to provide a great service then you are just living in cuckoo land. Biggest profit/lowest cost.

 

this is wrong for a number of reasons. #1 if i built a road that was of crappy quality i would lose money. the govt builds crappy roads all the time, but it does not matter to them because they dont have to please anyone. their reputation isnt on the line. profit is not on the line. its just like anything in the market, if it is bad quality and no one wants it the company loses money.

 

Without regulation then we would have no recourse when we get fucked over by the business, if they are unregulated, they wouldnt have to tell you about hidden costs/expensive clauses etc. It is through regulation of business that gives you the recourse when a business does you wrong.

 

no. the market puts people out of business that engage in shady activity.

lets look at hurricane katrina. the army corp of engineers is essentially responsible for the disaster because they couldnt maintain their levies. the levies, regulated and controlled by the federal government broke and flooded the city. disasters happen. we are denied perfection this side of the garden of eden, but what gets me is that FEMA and the army corp of engineers are still in business. it doesnt matter how bad of a job they do, they in fact, get MORE money.

 

if bill gates sells computers that automatically die as soon as you take them out of the box, you really think the market has no recourse against this? do you really think bill gates would be a billionaire if he sold junk? markets respond to consumer demand.

 

Without regulation you would have business salesmen making claim with no bearing in reality because you would have removed the regulation that tells them they have to be honest in their claims.

 

reputation plays a huge factor.

look at it this way... doctors are regulated. in fact they are a monopoly. you cant be a doctor unless the state gives you permission. yet just because all doctors have a license and are equally regulated by the state, do you trust them all to do good work? no. you generally ask around, see what a certain doctors reputation is, etc. if a doctors reputation is bad.

 

stated differently. suppose you are a licensed plumber, (therefore regulated by the state and part of the plumbing monopoly due to your license) do you trust all plumbers? if you have a plumbing company that does horrible work, they LOSE money. they go out of business. if a regulatory agency of the government fails, they cant be sued. in fact the first thing they do is claim they need more money. this is exactly opposite of a private company. if a private company fails they dont get anymore money, they go broke. yet the government gets to do whatever it wants and not please anyone because profit is not on the line for them. profit and competition breed efficiency and a good product.

 

your claim is absurd on its face. if this were true, fairly unregulated sectors of the economy like clothing and electronics would all be of horrible quality. evil greedy businessmen wouldnt even put stitching on the clothing. they would just use pins and still 'rip' you off for hundreds of dollars just for a pair of pants. and since we dont have regulations, everyone would be screwed by a TV company because the picture would suck. yet in the real world clothing and TV's have never been better. innovation through the market place with competition have created cheap awesome tv's. and what happens if toshiba starts making crappy tv's? they go the way of the do-do bird.

 

I work in Financial services, if the banks etc weren't regulated the service you would recieve would be so much worse than what you currently have, if you don't work in this environment you don't know how much regulation there is. I am glad of the regulation in my workplace, without it I wouldnt work there because it would be a lawless environment where customers would get shafted on the regular with no grounds for recourse because it is the regulations in place that mean you can complain to the company, have it investigated and then have somewhere you can go if you are unsatisfied with the way the complaint was handled.

 

 

Human nature is greed, business is greed. I have no recourse against these compaines if they aren't regulated and they have cornered the market, I would be forced to use their service or go without, I would rather have government run public services on taxes because at least I have some degree of say in who is running things.

 

this is hilarious.

you are saying that in the free market you are forced to buy services at the point of a gun. that you will be forced to shop at the apple store or eat at mcdonalds. this is absurd. no private company has any coercive control over you. its funny you say you will then be 'forced' to buy certain services so you must create a body funded by stolen wealth to force everyone to use and pay for the services provided by said coercive government.

 

you have much more choice in the market than you do with government. with government you have one service option, BAD. in the market you have a myriad of options ranging from bad to excellent and it is free of force, whereas government has to first steal money to pay for its 'services' and then FORCE you to use them. which would you rather choose.. going to which clothing store you want to freely or would you rather have the government force you to buy their horribly made clothes?

[Decyferon]

no I am not saying that you are forced in a free market at gun point to buy the goods, what I am saying is the bigger companies with the most profit will buy out all of their competitiojn, thus making it impossible to get by unless you use their service, if it is a road for instance, I need to use that service otherwise I cannot live, the company has a monopoly and I am forced then to use that service.

 

This is no different to government, however I have a say by voting and electing these people as opposed to the private business owners who I would have no recourse against because you have removed all regulations and allowed the monopoly of the market.

 

I could then take that to an extreme, like so often happens in these anti government rants that people go on, and say so what then happens once the business has monopolised say the gas industry, they move on to water, electricity etc and soon have the monopoly of the country. As they have free will to do whatever they want and they dont have to worry about the consumer because the consumer has no choice but to use their services and they then start charging you 90% of your wages to supply those services. Oh yea because the business is all powerful and able to do what it wants it decides it wants its own personal army. There is nothing the government can do because they have to pay this company as well and the company just cuts off the government.

 

You essentially then have a buisness running a country like a dictatorship. I jknow that is an extreme example, but it could in theory happen.

 

You only say there would be free choice in an open market, but the market would not be starting off even, we already have huge multinational companies that would price out and then take over all competitors, then they would have a monopoly and there would be no free choice and no one would be able to compete, regulations stop this with monopoly laws etc.

I personally think government is the lesser of 2 eveils when compared to business running everything.

 

Believe me I am not saying the government is perfect or the be all and end all, because frankly it isn't, it is corrupt and needs to be modernised and updated, but I prefer to be able to elect and have a say in who runs the important things in my country and not just hand over power to private multi national companies whose only intention is profit.

[Removed]

Human nature is greed, business is greed

 

 

I find this a strange statement. If human nature is greed and government is comprised of humans, then how is that business is greed but government is not?

 

 

 

 

 

You only say there would be free choice in an open market, but the market would not be starting off even, we already have huge multinational companies that would price out and then take over all competitors, then they would have a monopoly and there would be no free choice and no one would be able to compete, regulations stop this with monopoly laws etc.

 

Multinationals are largely a product of regulation themselves. Do you really think a company like Monsanto could possibly enforce Intellectual Property or patent laws internationally without the influence of the US exercised through the WTO? Without a corporatist relationship, many of these multinationals would not exist at the scale they do now. This is as governments can use their coercive power to the advantage of the multinational while benefiting from the tax collected and the employment they provide. It is difficult to even argue that the legal concept of 'limited liability' could possibly exist in absence of a coercive government. Furthermore, it is often government that provides the conditions in which a business, or small group of business's, can monopolise a market. Rather than regulation preventing monopolies or oligopolies, it is regulation that creates them by creating barriers to entry into the market for other competitive businesses. If you don't believe me on this, then you can test my theory by pooling your own and your mates money together and heading off to register that you are going to start a new local bank.

 

A final point is that monopolistic behaviour tends towards inefficiency. In this context there will always be an advantage for a smaller or more efficient organisation to enter into the monopolistic market.

[the.crooked]

Human nature is not necessarily "greed" in the traditional sense of the word. Evolutionary biology and game theory both suggest that altruism is an inherent part of social animal's decision making.

 

social contracts, in particular, are essentially an effect of those tendencies. we create agreements for the larger good of ourselves and those we go into agreements with in an attempts to garner more resources for our family lines, etc. government is a social contract created by a group of people for the continued assurance and protection of particular resources, tangible and intangible. we ostracize those that cannot fit within our societal and political norms and use that as the basis for removing resources from them. all of this shit is the basic structure of how social groups work with and within each other and how particular parties within those groups rationalize choices regarding the allocation of resources to any other particular party within the group.

 

evolutionary biology and cognition isn't brought up enough in political theory.

 

greed, is the abstract concept which expresses something further than what humans and other social creatures aspire to. creating a purely economic bottom line for an entity such as a corporation, is greed.

 

that's the difference between a business and a government. government has a social mandate to protect and make available the resources considered within its domain to those that are citizens of that domain. a corporation is libel to share holders with an agreement to do nothing but aquire more and more resources with no necessary responsibility to make them available. greed and social contract, different.

[Decyferon]

^^

that last part is exactly what I meant, thanks for phrasing it in a much much better way.

[the.crooked]

Of course, my comments are not to mask the notion that collusion through the use of regulatory or fiscal policy is not possible. To the contrary I think it's ignorant to believe that free markets can exist so long as fiscal policy exists. Personally I'm of the belief that free markets are that same sort of Ideal that can't really exist in reality anyways, so why mince hairs on it. AOD is sure to blast that statement, but I'm jus sayin.

 

Show me a "free market" in the world and I'll find a way to show you how legislative policy effects it. It's impossible.

[Removed]

Human nature is not necessarily "greed" in the traditional sense of the word. Evolutionary biology and game theory both suggest that altruism is an inherent part of social animal's decision making.

 

social contracts, in particular, are essentially an effect of those tendencies. we create agreements for the larger good of ourselves and those we go into agreements with in an attempts to garner more resources for our family lines, etc. government is a social contract created by a group of people for the continued assurance and protection of particular resources, tangible and intangible. we ostracize those that cannot fit within our societal and political norms and use that as the basis for removing resources from them. all of this shit is the basic structure of how social groups work with and within each other and how particular parties within those groups rationalize choices regarding the allocation of resources to any other particular party within the group.

 

evolutionary biology and cognition isn't brought up enough in political theory.

 

greed, is the abstract concept which expresses something further than what humans and other social creatures aspire to. creating a purely economic bottom line for an entity such as a corporation, is greed.

 

that's the difference between a business and a government. government has a social mandate to protect and make available the resources considered within its domain to those that are citizens of that domain. a corporation is libel to share holders with an agreement to do nothing but aquire more and more resources with no necessary responsibility to make them available. greed and social contract, different.

 

I agree completely with your summary of a social contract, but I do not think that government relationship with its citizens is in fact a social contract at all. I am happy to say that there is an element of consent within this arrangement, yet the coercive elements of this relationship negate the general theory of contract. As I stated in an earlier post, this theory may have held some validity in an era before all known land was claimed by nation-states. In this bygone era people would have the ability to opt in, or out, of living within a state protectorate. The peace of Westphalia ended this choice in Europe, then later European colonisation saw that this model was exported across the rest of the world. Now, as a 'citizen' of a nation-state I have no alternative to participate in this alleged contract. Furthermore, as I understand it any contract must require all parties to actively agree to participate. I have not personally agreed in any way to this contract, so how is it that I may be forced to comply, from the time of my birth to the time of my death, as if I had? I don't know of any private contract that would result in such permanency without recourse, except the sale of property. Which is a little concerning if you think about it!

 

I think the social contract theory of government is deeply flawed and thus not an adequate explanation for the complete identity of the relationship between government and citizen.

 

Even still, if we were to accept that government is a form of social contract I disagree that it is fundamentally any different from business relationships, except of course for its self granted right to coerce. To say that businesses have a purely economic bottom line is a little short sighted given that the process of achieving wealth economically is done through providing goods or services which people desire. Companies cannot simply accumulate resources in the same way that governments cannot. Both need to trade their services in order to gain from them. While it is certainly true that a business does not have to share its profits with the people within its geographical location in the same way that a government does. If that business owns the property it conducts its operations on and its profits are achieved through voluntary trade rather than coercive taxation, then how can a claim are made on the wealth generated by its sales?

 

In this sense businesses are subject to similar tests of legitimacy as government, in that individuals will only engage in a contractual arrangement after a cost benefit analysis of the value they will receive from the good or service, after subtracting all potential costs. This is why companies are so keen to brand as it allows for individuals to take a short cut through this calculation. Inversely this is why companies are so adverse to negative associations with their brand, as instead of the individual weighing up the costs and benefits of buying each individual product, they can dismiss an entire product range. Governments largely act in the same way, they attempt to sell their services to voters by highlighting any benefits, obscuring their costs and branding their product. Although, as AOD has stated repeatedly, they reserve the right to force payment for their services on the individual, whereas businesses do not. So if you are questioning the accountability of business vs government, surely business is far more accountable since it relies entirely on voluntary, rather than coerced, trade with its customers.

 

So with this all in mind, while you might say that government has a mandate to act on behalf of its citizens provided by votes. I think it is fair to equally say that businesses have a mandate to act on behalf of their consumers provided by profit. Yet, the businesses mandate is far more legitimate since it relies on a principle of voluntarism. But at the core of this debate is still Decyferons curious statement, which I think is indicative of the beliefs of the statist left, it boils down to this; Human beings are inherently untrustworthy and self interested which means that so are all of their systems of organisation, amazingly except one, our brand of government.

[Removed]

In case anyone finds it interesting,

is a short clip demonstrating problems with the social contract theory.

[the.crooked]

I'll have a full response later, these are gonna be the highlights:

 

Regarding cost-benefit analysis:

decision paralysis in light of too many choices

working against self interest due to branding

 

I agree the social contract aspect is sort of limited and archaic in it's ability to accurately describe the relationship between citizen and government, but it is, never the less, the basis of how they came about.

 

blah blah, more on that later.

[El Mamerro]

Fuck, I wanted to continue with my input but got sidetracked with a vacation. Now I'm back and don't have the energy :(

 

Good continuing discussion nonetheless.

[cunt sauce]

Roderick T. Long:

 

 

Whichever party is out of power always begins to emphasise its libertarian-sounding side in order to divert anti-government sentiment toward support of that party rather than toward genuine radical opposition to the entire establishment.

 

By the same token, the party that’s in power employs alarmist rhetoric about the other side’s supposed anti-government radicalism in order to drum up support for its own policies.

 

Thus events like the Tea Parties serve the interests of both parties; people with libertarian leanings get diverted into supporting one half of the bipartisan duopoly, the antistate message getting diluted by mixture with (in this case) right-wing statist crap about war and immigration and the Kulturkampf. Those turned off by this creepy right-wing stew get diverted into supporting the other half of the bipartisan duopoly, with any libertarian sentiments likewise getting diluted into (in this case) left-wing statist crap about gun control and the need to impose regulation on some imaginary laissez-faire economy. And so the whole power structure ends up being reinforced.

 

I saw this game under Clinton, I saw (almost) everyone switch teams under Bush, and now they’re all switching back again. And so we get Republican pundits and politicians suddenly howling about Obama’s fascism when they’ve never supported anything but fascism in their entire lives; and on the other side we get Democrats ridiculing the very sorts of concerns about oppression and civil liberties violations that they pretended to take seriously under Dubya’s reign.

 

Is it worth libertarians’ and/or anarchists’ while to participate in such events? Sure; because while the voices at the podium tend to be statist apparatchiks, the crowds will tend to be a mixture of statist yahoos and genuinely libertarian-leaning folks, and outreach to the latter is always worth a try – in Kierkegaard’s words, “to split up the crowd, or to talk to it, not to form a crowd, but so that one or another individual might go home from the assembly and become a single individual.” But of course the organisers of such events are on the lookout for us and always do their best to try to narrow the boundaries of discussion.

[cunt sauce]

t or eat at mcdonalds. this is absurd. no private company has any coercive control over you.

 

Not really in the discussion, but.... No control over the consumer, hmmm sure, I'll bite... Not usually.... but....

 

 

 

What about the forest dwelling indigenous people in Brazil that are forced out of their land by the government (that is made up of corporate elites and corporately funded politicians) to clear room for animal-agriculture so you can have cheap crappy beef here in the United States???

 

Angel, you never seem to think about the dark side of capitalism that you don't have to wake up and face everyday.

 

Civilization, ESPECIALLY Industrialized Capitalism would not be possible without widespread coercion and atrocities. Just because you don't see it in your life AOD, it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

 

Your $50 shoes were made by a child in Indonesia who has been treated like shit for their entire lives. She's probably indigenous. Her parents or grandparents lived off the forest and they lost the ability to find their own sustenance when their government pushed them out and sold their land to transnational corporations. So since there's no other way to support their lives they slave away for 50 cents a day at the shoe sweatshop. In order to ship them to America, the company needs a boat right? This boat is made out of aluminum and iron and many other things that come from publicly funded strip mining operations (ecologically destructive). The iron and aluminum are smelted in a factory powered by a publicly funded hydroelectric dam (also highly ecologically destructive). The profits generated are privatized. The boat got here with the awesome power of oil, a fossil fuel that requires publicly funded warfare or greedy U.S. and/or Euro sponsored dictatorships (also publicly funded) to extract it from their people's land base. The only reason why shit's so cheap is because of public subsidies and externalized costs.

 

The production, distribution and consumption phases of the economic system are highly abstracted in this current state of civilization. Pretty much every consumer good is tainted with slavery or violence, you don't see it in your every day life: electronics, pineapples, coffee, bananas, cocoa, precious metals, oil, timber etc..

 

All wealth is derived from Labor and Nature. Without exploiting people that don't have access to land we can't have cheap consumer goods and "THEY" can't have an income. Globalization shifts income from worker to investor, and shifts the costs from investors to communities. We don't need forestry, agricultural, or industrial programs run by corporate and governmental elites (same thing these days); we need local control of land and markets. Your hero Adam Smith's invisible hand of economics- his free-market, only worked when the market was local, face-to-face, voluntary, transparent, low-tech, and based on ethical, mutual relationships. Its been a long time since that was the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please don't start with the "go live like a cave-man" thing either. It makes you sound like a technology-loving idiot who has no understanding of how the majority of the people on this planet live.

 

 

 

 

 

have fun picking my rant apart.. I look forward to rebuttals..

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

So what are you suggesting is the fix to all of this?

 

Just curious.

[Removed]

 

What about the forest dwelling indigenous people in Brazil that are forced out of their land by the government (that is made up of corporate elites and corporately funded politicians) to clear room for animal-agriculture so you can have cheap crappy beef here in the United States???

 

Angel, you never seem to think about the dark side of capitalism that you don't have to wake up and face everyday.

 

Civilization, ESPECIALLY Industrialized Capitalism would not be possible without widespread coercion and atrocities. Just because you don't see it in your life AOD, it doesn't mean it isn't happening.

 

Your $50 shoes were made by a child in Indonesia who has been treated like shit for their entire lives. She's probably indigenous. Her parents or grandparents lived off the forest and they lost the ability to find their own sustenance when their government pushed them out and sold their land to transnational corporations. So since there's no other way to support their lives they slave away for 50 cents a day at the shoe sweatshop. In order to ship them to America, the company needs a boat right? This boat is made out of aluminum and iron and many other things that come from publicly funded strip mining operations (ecologically destructive). The iron and aluminum are smelted in a factory powered by a publicly funded hydroelectric dam (also highly ecologically destructive). The profits generated are privatized. The boat got here with the awesome power of oil, a fossil fuel that requires publicly funded warfare or greedy U.S. and/or Euro sponsored dictatorships (also publicly funded) to extract it from their people's land base. The only reason why shit's so cheap is because of public subsidies and externalized costs.

 

The production, distribution and consumption phases of the economic system are highly abstracted in this current state of civilization. Pretty much every consumer good is tainted with slavery or violence, you don't see it in your every day life: electronics, pineapples, coffee, bananas, cocoa, precious metals, oil, timber etc..

 

 

 

I find it interesting that whenever issues involving a corporitist relationship between business and state like this are raised it is considered to be a problem of capitalism. It is tragic that native people are being forced from their tradtional land, but I dont see it as a problem with captialism per se. More so a problem caused by general apathy towards coercive force. In absense of capitalism, the same scenario is played out where any powerfull group is prepared to use force to gain access to resources in an area occupied by traditional peoples.

 

But hey, we discussed this kind of stuff in the other thread and you didn't reply.

[TheoHuxtable..]

Bernie Sanders speaking the truth:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OtB298fHY

 

Republicans just voted "No" and blocked keeping the tax cuts for the Middle Class. Because they want tax cuts for the rich more than anyone.

 

The key to growing a strong economy is growing the Middle Class and shrinking the gap between rich & poor. Giving more tax cuts for the rich does just the opposite.

[Mercer]

The republicans blocked the tax cuts because they want this country to fail hard for the next two years to help get another idiot in office.

[Removed]

Bernie Sanders speaking the truth:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5OtB298fHY

 

Republicans just voted "No" and blocked keeping the tax cuts for the Middle Class. Because they want tax cuts for the rich more than anyone.

 

The key to growing a strong economy is growing the Middle Class and shrinking the gap between rich & poor. Giving more tax cuts for the rich does just the opposite.

 

 

I should first state that I have no real interest in US partisan politics. My so while I have been arguing for free market principles, I don't necessarily support the Tea Party or GOP more than I do anyone else. So the following critique should be understood as a critique of Sanders line of argument, not partisan status.

 

I listened to this speech and I think there are some real problems with it. Primarily the problem is that of a relative discussion of wealth. As was mentioned earlier, talking about the top 1% of society reviving x% of wealth is problematic if all of society is objectively better off. It's the 'cake and its slices' debate again.

 

The next problem is that when talking about tax cuts for the rich, the Berndog is ignoring that in a progressive taxation system those who are in the top income brackets pay a higher rate. This means that not only are they paying a higher total amount of tax, they are also paying more tax relative to those who earn less. Can you really call it a 'tax break' if it was a higher relative amount to start with?

 

The final problem is that it tends to be those in the higher income brackets who generate the wealth to begin with. Wealth is not a zero sum game, and those who have greater ability to generate wealth though entrepreneurial activity obviously are likely to earn more of it themselves. In this way decreasing the tax for the wealthy may increase the overall tax base by providing decreasing the disincentive to operate in the market..

[angelofdeath]

anyone see any LOLZ in the new congress?

they spent months preaching fiscal responsibility and returning to the constitution, yet spent their entire first day wasting thousands of dollars reading the constitution to everyone and not only that, but the house had to debate which parts were 'offensive' which parts to leave out. they are also proposing a bill that would require all legislation to have to cite a specific clause in the constitution which gives congress the authority to act on such matters. i love the idea, but sadly, no power exists in the federal constitution for congress to pass such a law!

 

im sure the debates on what to cut will continue...which all seem to be similar to:

"well guys, should we cut 5$ or 10$ off a trip to moon.?' in another words, lets put on a show about cuts but lets grow government instead

[Avesism]

Yes, and another major LOLZ on that note is the fact that while they were wasting all that time and money reading the constitution, two of the ol' GOP'ers weren't even sworn in, as required by the constitution which they were making the (expensive) point to uphold, but were casting their votes regardless. Oh the ironing...

 

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/gop-scrambles-after-two-representatives-illegally-cast-votes-without-taking-oath

[angelofdeath]

that one took the cake!

 

not surprising though

[+plus+]

and i came in here just to say FUCK THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT