Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France
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Who says? If I own a bar where people get into fights, these people would still get into fights with no government. When deciding how many bouncers I wanted to hire, I would have to consider that I could no longer depend on the police to help out, which means I would likely hire more bouncers and I would pass this cost along to my customers. Everyone in town that is not my customer would now have more money because they wouldn't be forced to help keep the peace at my establishment.
People will still kill each other with no government, but there would have to be a tremendous amount of killing going on to surpass the amount killed by governments waging war on each other.
This already exists with fancy condo complexes that have security guards. When people buy their unit they agree to a contract to contribute dollars towards security, landscaping, etc.
Humans, the same as now. Our governments are not composed of all knowing beings from outer space, they are just humans.
Neither one. The United States has had some serious limitations on immigration and nationalization for most of its existence.
The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103) provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white persons" of "good moral character". It thus left out indentured servants, slaves, free blacks, and later Asians. While women were included in the act, the right of citizenship did "not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States...." Citizenship was inherited exclusively through the father.
Ever hear of Ellis Island? It was a fun place, back in the 1890's:
Generally, those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island. Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money carried. It was important to the American government that the new arrivals could support themselves and have money to get started. The average the government wanted the immigrants to have was between 18 and 25 dollars. Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time. Some unskilled workers were rejected because they were considered "likely to become a public charge". About 2 percent were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as having a chronic contagious disease, criminal background, or insanity
Do you think that the average government worker in those times, who spoke English and was mildly patriotic with nationalist fervor, would just let in someone who spoke no English at all? Immigrants drilled each other on how to appear to speak better English than they actually did, just so they would pass the entry tests.
According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 were intended to preserve American homogeneity. They say it like, this:
"In all its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity.
That's pretty clear.
You make an argument and then pull the support out from under it in the same paragraph.
Initial immigrants had a hard time. Their children had less of a hard time because they assimilated into the homogenized society. Their grandchildren fit in just fine, having totally assimilated.
The Chinese were brought in by other Chinese partnered with white Americans and were essentially sold into slavery, despite the claims of it being indentured servitude. The women were brought in as sex slaves. The men were brought in for cheap labor. They didn't speak the native language, looked funny and nobody really gave two shits about the Asians, unless the job market tightened up, in which case the Asians were the first ones to get voted out of the US.
I too don't see a point in arguing because this is not practical at all. Many posts have evoked either a question or a nasty comment as response.
All the assumptions for anarcho-capitalism are being made ideally while the government is being condemned based upon the practical (real world) performance. Again I suggest, either compare both of them ideally or practically.
This system can't work out in reality. If ever an attempt is made, it will be a very violent and painful experience for everyone involved. While you and me may still remain in peace, the general human nature won't change. The thugs or those with the gun power will openly prevail in day to day life. Talk about not being able to even open a grocery store, let alone competing fairly in a free market.
All the assumptions for anarcho-capitalism are being made ideally while the government is being condemned based upon the practical (real world) performance. Again I suggest, either compare both of them ideally or practically.
This system can't work out in reality. If ever an attempt is made, it will be a very violent and painful experience for everyone involved. While you and me may still remain in peace, the general human nature won't change. The thugs or those with the gun power will openly prevail in day to day life. Talk about not being able to even open a grocery store, let alone competing fairly in a free market.
How do you know this? If a boat from Russia arrived I would imagine the ideal Ellis Island worker in that situation would be someone who also spoke Russian. It wouldn't surprise me if they had to show they knew some basic english words, but most Mexican illegals can do the same now.
Immigration in New York City
According to that it looks like most of the immigrants were poor and uneducated. It says 54% of Italians couldn't read, so how much time do you think they had spent learning English?
"Some established Americans feared that these inferior Italians would be unable to assimilate into American society and, would ultimately, lead to the collapse of American civilization. Established Americans had similar fears about all immigrant groups; they feared the contamination of their lineages with second-class blood and the destruction of America."
I wasn't talking about who had a hard time, but about what gave the USA its identity, and the grandparents are more responsible for that than the grandchildren.
You're essentially saying that most people would end up dieing if they were allowed to spend money on whatever they wanted. Do people want to live? If so, why wouldn't they choose to spend money on whatever makes them live longer?
I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Government is inevitable?
Austrian economics starts with one unique (at the time proposition) promoted by Carl Menger. All value is subjective.
There are no empirical values, and so as a science, economics cannot deal in values since economics can only tell us causally doing A will yield B, it cannot tell us that B is desirable or not.
Now, there are some obvious outcomes where the effects are pretty generally considered to be negative, for example those actions which yield painful, or deadly consequences. Generally, humans do not prefer those, and so understanding economics (which actions yield those outcomes) people may choose to take a stand against those particular actions.
This is why many economists are libertarian and conservative than progressive and Marxist. Once you think causally, you're going to adopt certain methods over other methods. Because progressives and Marxists prefer a different methodology or different outcome, you're going to see them gravitate towards other areas of study and focus.
Another fact of human existence is scarcity of both material resources and time.
These are the obvious ones that pop into my head at the moment, there may be more, but subjectivism is axiomatic for Austrianism. Everything Austrian has to conform to subjectivism. If someone comes up with an economic theory that utilitizes some sort of objective value theory, it is by definition not Austrian, and wouldn't be accepted by Austrians as valid.
Scarcity is generally accepted across all economic schools, but Austrians in particular are very adamant about consistency with first principles. You could say this is also an affliction with libertarianism.
Mind you, not all Austrians are libertarians. Some are conservatives. I do not know of any progressive Austrians, and Mises was the arch ideological enemy of Marx, so I don't think Marxists have a lot to do with Austrianism.
This is tricky because the honest answer is that most people have never read Darwin, and so what is called Darwinism, has little to do with Darwin.
Social Darwinism is used mostly as an epithet.
Ok, economics is value free because values are subjective (that's a very Austrian view). So economics just tells us about cause and effect.
If you do X, you will get Y.
A free market is desirable if you want X, Y and Z outcomes. It may not be desirable if you want A, B and C outcomes.
Let's start at the beginning.
If I want a system where people act peacefully with one another, I want a free market, because an unfree market is someone exercising prior restraint on my actions.
If I want a system where we can get a lot of trade, I want a free market, since there can't be more trade than "as much as possible".
If I want a system where the rights of the individual are paramount, then I want a free market because everyone owns his own life, time and property. There are no other claims except those which he has voluntarily adopted.
As far as bringing out the worst in humans, I don't think a system based on property and peace is going to do that in a big way. There will always be dangerous and malfunctioning people. Most of them are raised with violence and abuse, many of them from single parent households. Those are areas we can improve upon with or without a government, despite attempts by the government to destroy the family as a social institution.
Will we see less bad stuff in a free market? I would reason so. I think that people tend to get along (as many of us do on the internet) without some overarching force or institution in our ear at all times. I also think that social cooperation for mutual benefit is a really strong drive which exerts itself trillions of times daily between different people, which far outnumbers the amount of violent interactions people have.
We're just not trained to look for it.
I deal with one person at a time. I don't think on global scales. I don't intend to breed at this time, and my health isn't all it could be. I am only here for as long as I am, and I can only do what I can do.
And I find it an interesting challenge to try and advance the cause of peace and liberty.
That said, if there was to be a revolution in the way the world works, it will probably come through technology over the next couple generations. We need government for less and less everyday due to tech, and so they continue to insert themselves deeper and deeper into our lives, making themselves more of an annoyance than an awkward benefit or tolerable distraction.
When humans at large are ready to embrace peace and goodwill, we'll see changes. Not everyone, but say 50% should do it. The rest will follow because most people are followers, not leaders. We're wired for social hierarchy.
Let's make sure it is a peaceful one.
No.
I gave you a high quality reply which challenged some of your statements, and now you're not going to reply?
I want to know if you make taking care of the poor more important than your own personal material gain. You claimed that corporations were bad for not doing this, so I wanted to make sure it was a value that you lived in your life if that's how you want to judge the actions of others.
Do you care for the hungry who have no money? If not, then how can you possibly demand that others do it for you? Isn't that hypocritical?
What assumptions?
Anarcho-capitalism is based on a simple idea. Aggression (the initiation of force) is wrong. Everything flows from this first principle.
This is an assertion without proof. Why?
This is another assertion without proof. Why?
I can imagine people saying this about blacks and their social role as slaves 300 years ago, or women in the west 250 years ago. They have a nature, it can't change.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
This is another assertion without proof. Why?
There are plenty of businesses in regions with no law enforcement. You must think very little of your fellow man if you think that everyone is inherently a criminal, kept restrained only by the fact government exists. How myopic.
I guess what I was trying to get was the ability, or the human factor to pervert, misdirect and generally get in the way of what, in theory, should be a great way for things to work. I only combined the example of helath care that you posted with the general idea of government (in this case, the American government) and how I would say, corporate and personal agenda's get in the way - if that makes any sense...lol.
Thanks for the rest G. Something interesting to read and take in.
The government doesn't monitor everything that comes off every assembly line. It's still a trust based system.
You're making an efficiency argument, and efficiency can only be determined by a market, so government doesn't even get any marks in an efficiency statement.
That said, my issue with the government is based on efficiency. No offense, but I personally feel that people who hide behind the efficiency stuff are moral cowards or they haven't thought the issue through.
Government is inherently immoral. That's my issue with it. It exists through the projection of force, not voluntary consent. That makes it bad in my opinion. I don't think using force to get your way is proper behavior socially.
You may beg to differ.
If defense was distributed, it would be a lot harder to conquer a country. if Iraq or Libya had citizen militias, the country would be unconquerable. Because the military was centralized under one man or council or parliament, it was easy to defeat.
Your argument is counter-intuitive. The future is bottom up, not top down. In every aspect of human relations.
It's not your job to run their lives. Stop being a control freak and thinking you know what is best for people around you.
And, take advantage of the asymmetry of this information, and find a way to deliver it for a profit.
You can't make them better by force.
1. You don't have the capacity, intellectually or otherwise.
2. You don't have the moral authority.
You need to accept that friends and family will do dumb shit, and the world is a lonely place for intelligent people.
But what happens in all of those countries where there is no regulation?
Are people being poisoned by evil corporations every day?
That's hollywood bullcrap. It's a myth, and yet people eat it up.
TBH, when I see you perpetuate the myth, I think you're a sheeple. Maybe you just needed me to point out, it's almost all bullshit.
We will only progress as a species morally and intellectually when we reject abstractions, delusions, and absurdities, and embrace peaceful cooperation.
Government are anathema to society. If you believe force and violence against innocent people is wrong, you must oppose government.
They don't have any authority. They use force to compel people to follow their arbitrary guidelines.
The market is a great regulator, anyone who hurts someone else is liable for the harm. The consequence is bankruptcy, and the only way out is to pay off the victim, instead of the current system, where they pay off government bureaucrats with sweetheart industry jobs through the revolving door of lobbying.
Again, if you oppose violence, you must oppose the state. Endorsing the state is an endorsement of violence against innocent people.
That's where economics comes in. What are the incentives (structurally) to enable people to bring out their best, rather than their worst?
If we start with the premise of government, which is just institutionalized force, then we're building on a platform of bad.
If we start with peaceful cooperation, then we have a shot at something good. But as I tried to explain to conversion, someone who protects your property by stealing your property is a contradiction in terms. We can't do bad and get a good outcome.
Absolutely. This is messy stuff. Not everyone wants peace. Not everyone believes we can have peace (see this thread for example). Not everyone understand peace.
We're going to have some wild stuff. That's part of the human condition. Even if we all agree on a course of action, a consequence of subjectivism is that we're all agreeing for different reasons. Humanity is like a herd of cats, the only thing that somewhat keeps us in line with the state right now is profound ignorance, a lack of social institutions to oppose the state (like the church, the family etc) and our social biology which makes us very susceptible to herd signalling.
I cannot stress enough times, I am not a Utopian. I just want to see less violence in the world, and specifically directed at me. I want to deal with people fairly, equitable and honestly. I do not want to be attacked because someone doesn't like my lifestyle, my choices or my success.
Why do you need a military if people can organize their own defense?
Look at Switzerland. Everyone has a rifle. No one dare invade them.
The units probably wouldn't be sold individually, I don't see how that situation would work unless there was a covenant in place like condo associations and gated communities have.
Homesteading is a pretty good theory for the origination of property rights in nature.
When the government disappeared, inflation was halted and mortality rates went down (people lived longer) and more healthy infants were born.
Somalia improved without government.
Ben Powell, "Somalia After State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement" on Vimeo
Calling people crazy is never a good argument. It's basically just name calling.
If you disagree, act like a responsible grownup and explain why.
That's fine. Just please don't point guns at me to force me to participate in your wonderful world.
Isn't it a bit contradictory? You're saying people shouldn't run our lives, but then you say we're wired for social hierarchy meaning we look for direction from above. How can the future be from the bottom up when humanity is like a herd of cats?
Nope.
The herd of cats was in reference to subjectivism. You can get people to agree upon a course of action, even though they all agree for different reasons.
notsureifsrs.jpg
Yeah, national defense is for pussies.
So potential invaders/enemies have drones and nukes? Big fucking deal.
Who cares when you have rifles, amirite?
Lots and lots of rifles.
Or you know what, forget about rifles. Let's go the old school route, swords FTW!
Again, there are cases when governments can make sheer size work in their favor. National defense is a good example if you don't consider my scenario #2 situation a compelling argument. If you think that giving everyone a rifle would be enough, then I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
ly2 from WF;1654971 Know what the best part is? Unlike the wonderful free healthcare systems in Canada said:
How is he misguided? Most Canadians aren't even aware that same day service exists in medicine elsewhere in the world.
Did I say this?
Why wouldn't anarcho-capitalists have drones and nukes too?
You can make a nuke off blueprints from the internet.
Again, all governments can do that we can't do as individuals working together cooperatively, is to use force against the innocent and call it law.
That's it.
Again with the hollywood. Why would anyone invade a country with no central government and everyone is personally armed? What would be to gain? How would they control, let alone hold it?
Actually try to think, imagine you're Saddam Hussein. Why would you invade an America where people live in private enclaves and are well armed?
Most of the military violence in the world is perpetuated by government, not individuals. Governments and their wars and internal genocides killed 100s of millions of people in the 20th century. Not evil corporations. Not mercenaries. Not private companies. Not psychotic rogue mad men.
Government men killed 100s of millions.