Ayn Rand Was NOT a Libertarian

[Occam's Banana]

If you are confused why I am asking an anarchist about his signature which seems to endorse the notion of "Law", then idk what to tell you. That just seems contradictory to me. Who enforces the Law in anarchism?

That particular quote by Bastiat does not "endorse" anything. It expresses a very wise, profound and insightful observation about what happens when Law and Morality conflict with one another.

Governments (currently) exist - as they did when Bastiat was alive. Laws exist. These are easily & empirically demonstrable facts.

Would you expect me to deny the truth of a statement such as "It is against the law in the state of Alabama to kill someone without just cause" because I'm an anarchist?

IOW: My being an anarchist hasn't got anything to do with the profundity & rightness of Bastiat's observation.

(Furthemore, I would add that the notion of Law is not antithetical to or incompatible with Anarchy. Anarchy is not the absence of Law. It is the absence of the State.)

And second, my first question implied the request for some kind of explanation on your part.

In that case, I would prefer not to answer. I'm not trying to dodge or be evasive, but it's a HUGE subject to which justice cannot possibly be done via mere Internet forum posts. Where I have differences (due to temperament, perspective or approach) with "orthodox" anarcho-capitalism (if there is such a thing), I prefer to bring them up or address them on an "as-needed" basis, when the opportunity or appropriate context arises.

Also, I have little interest in arguing over the rightness or wrongness of Anarchy or Statism (though I sometimes allow myself to get sucked into doing so despite myself). I do, however, enjoy discussing such matters (sometimes) - for my own edification & clarification of thought, if nothing else. This is why I read but (usually) refrain from posting in the various "Anarchy vs. Statism" threads that pop up around here. Unfortunately, they invariably end up devolving (usually quite rapidly) into nasty bouts of name-calling & vitriol-spewing.

 

[TheGrinch]

Well that is a complicated point of discussion, but one difference would be that those running the government would have to swear to honestly uphold the principles upon which the Republic is founded. That may not mean much today, but that's why we have to change some things. A corporation does not have to be based on principles of freedom, although the idea in a Republican form of government is that all corporations would have to operate in accordance with them because the government would enforce them.

Second just because I believe the government is bad does not mean I have to believe that all corporations are good. I do not. I think most are bad. I would rather try to reform the government than put my freedom in the hands of corporations. I think that is extremely dangerous and I would never voluntarily agree to hand over my freedom and the freedom of my family to a corporation.

Ultimately a good government can only be achieved if the people are good. But if the people on the whole are bad then we will have a bad society whether it has a government or not.

Very well said. It seems some want to think that if you eliminate government you will eliminate evil.

We need to remove the corruption and interests out of government (in part by keeping it local and accountable), not put it in the hands of these same corrupt interests.

 

[TheGrinch]

(Furthemore, I would add that the notion of Law is not antithetical to or incompatible with Anarchy. Anarchy is not the absence of Law. It is the absence of the State.)

As was mentioned earlier, if you have no state, then you have no law. Whatever enforces that law becomes the "state", because if everything is purely voluntary, then it becomes no more than a suggestion.

 

[TheGrinch]

//

 

[Occam's Banana]

is it now about how easy you find a book to read or about the quality and precision of the argument?
anyway .. we're off topic.

Yes. That is exactly what it is about. It's about expressing yourself clearly. It's about striking a balance between precision & concision. Hume was able to do it. Kant was not.

As Mencken noted, many of Kant's ideas were simple & easy to grasp - but Kant made it a pain in the ass to grasp them with his labrynthine verbosity.

And you're right. We are off topic.

 

[vienna]

Very well said. It seems some want to think that if you eliminate government you will eliminate evil.

We need to remove the corruption and interests out of government (in part by keeping it local and accountable), not put it in the hands of these same corrupt interests.

corruption is everywhere where power and money is. local government, federal government, corporations, relationships between people, religion, ... everywhere.
local government is not different. actually ... local government can be a lot more vulnerable to corruption then federal government.

 

[vienna]

Yes. That is exactly what it is about. It's about expressing yourself clearly. It's about striking a balance between precision & concision. Hume was able to do it. Kant was not.

As Mencken noted, many of Kant's ideas were simple & easy to grasp - but Kant made it a pain in the ass to grasp them with his labrynthine verbosity.

And you're right. We are off topic.

i don't wanna continue this discussion because were off topic.
i just think that kant made himselfe and his ideas understood. and that's the point.
he wasn't trying to write bestsellers. and making sub and subsubpoints is sometimes necessary.
no compromise to simplicity is sometimes necessary.
but let's just agree that we have different opinions on that.

 

[TheGrinch]

corruption is everywhere where power and money is. local government, federal government, corporations, relationships between people, religion, ... everywhere.
local government is not different. actually ... local government can be a lot more vulnerable to corruption then federal government.

The more local, the more accountable you are to your constituents. If we all marched to town hall and demanded something, they'd be far more likely to have to listen, than with the federal government that represents so many people, that you'd need a virtual uprising of the nation to demand the same.

Also, that's ridiculous that local governments are more rife for corruption... Well, maybe potential for minor corruption but not corruption on the scale of billions and trillions on the line, which makes the federal government far more rife to exploitation.

You must not be a Dr. Paul supporter if you don't understand why states rights are at very least better than leaving the federal government to try to implement one-size-fits-all (but only really benefits a few) solutions.

 

[vienna]

The more local, the more accountable you are to your constituents. If we all marched to town hall and demanded something, they'd be far more likely to listen, than with the federal government that represents so many people, that you'd need a virtual uprising of the nation to demand the same.

Also, that's ridiculous that local governments are more rife for corruption... Well, maybe potential for minor corruption but not corruption on the scale of billions and trillions on the line, which makes the federal government far more rife.

just imagine a huge corporation which has it'S headquarters in a little town.
in such towns the real major sits in the head office of that corporation and not in the town hall.
quite usually those towns are totally dependent on such a corporation and they will do nearly anything they want.
or those corporation can literally buy the puplic opinion of such a region by financing or buying up the most important media outlets of the area. or one guy is in the government, his brother in business, a cousin in the media ...
those things happen every day. if you take a look at the situation in southern italy for example you'll see that the local government is a key to the mafia problem.
all those small units of government can easily be infiltrated and be corrupted.

 

[Occam's Banana]

As was mentioned earlier, if you have no state, then you have no law.

This is not so. Stateless societies have existed. These societies had & were able to enforce laws.

Medieval Iceland & pre-medieval Ireland are examples.

Whatever enforces that law becomes the "state",

A matter of sematics. This is why I regard many of the arguments between Statists & Anarchists as being so needless & pointless.

Much of it is merely a difference of description & perspective, rather than actual substance.

because if everything is purely voluntary, then it becomes no more than a suggestion.

But everything will not be purely voluntary. Force can legitimately be used against those who use it illegitimately.

Force can also legitimately be used against those who break the law. Existence of law does not require the existence of the State (see above).

 

[vienna]

This is not so. Stateless societies have existed. These societies had & were able to enforce laws.

Medieval Iceland & pre-medieval Ireland are examples.

i wouldn't call medieval iceland or pre medieval ireland role models for freedom or sophisticated societies.
those were pretty backwarded farmer and fishermen cultures.
in iceland they had this debating culture ... but those folks up there weren't really a stronghold of civilization.
actually they caused europe a few hundret years of dark ages.

 

[TheGrinch]

just imagine a huge corporation which has it'S headquarters in a little town.
in such towns the real major sits in the head office of that corporation and not in the town hall.
quite usually those towns are totally dependent on such a corporation and they will do nearly anything they want.
or those corporation can literally buy the puplic opinion of such a region by financing or buying up the most important media outlets of the area. or one guy is in the government, his brother in business, a cousin in the media ...
those things happen every day. if you take a look at the situation in southern italy for example you'll see that the local government is a key to the mafia problem.
all those small units of government can easily be infiltrated and be corrupted.

Everything you just described is X1000 when you have a federal government going to wars, stripping liberties, and favoring the priveleged to secure resources and ensure control.

It is far easier to take out the trash locally than it is to take it out of Washington. See what the liberty folks have been doing in NH for instance.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

 

[vienna]

Everything you just described is X1000 when you have a federal government going to wars, stripping liberties, and favoring the priveleged to secure resources and ensure control.

It is far easier to take out the trash locally than it is to take it out of Washington. See what the liberty folks have been doing in NH for instance.

no it's not easier.
if you have a factory poisoning your ground water because the (mayor of the) city is somehow dependent on the corporation and looks the other way. that effects your life.
and actually there are studies and investigations which show that on a local level a huge amount of corruption is happening.
as i said. in naples, sicily of campania you can see those things very clearly.
and of course to a lesser degree in your or my country.

 

[Occam's Banana]

i wouldn't call medieval iceland or pre medieval ireland role models for freedom or sophisticated societies.

I did not claim that they were. They simply demonstate that law is in fact possible without the State.

Whether such is possible for "sophisticated societies" (whatever that is supposed to mean) is an entirely empirical matter and cannot be ruled out a priori.

 

[vienna]

I did not claim that they were. They simply demonstate that law is in fact possible without the State.

Whether such is possible for "sophisticated societies" (whatever that is supposed to mean) is an entirely empirical matter and cannot be ruled out a priori.

their state just looked different because they didn't even live in real cities.
they were a bunch of farmers who enforced their moral believes on the others.
and the vikings were actually quite famous for brutal laws and punishments and very precisly planned wars against their neighbouring countries. in iceland they even had something as a parliament.
there's no real difference to other societies. despite the fact that they weren't as sophisticated as their neighbours to the south.
they didn't even use books or scripture.

 

[July]

Well that is a complicated point of discussion, but one difference would be that those running the government would have to swear to honestly uphold the principles upon which the Republic is founded. That may not mean much today, but that's why we have to change some things. A corporation does not have to be based on principles of freedom, although the idea in a Republican form of government is that all corporations would have to operate in accordance with them because the government would enforce them.

Second just because I believe the government is bad does not mean I have to believe that all corporations are good. I do not. I think most are bad. I would rather try to reform the government than put my freedom in the hands of corporations. I think that is extremely dangerous and I would never voluntarily agree to hand over my freedom and the freedom of my family to a corporation.

Ultimately a good government can only be achieved if the people are good. But if the people on the whole are bad then we will have a bad society whether it has a government or not.

I agree, though the point I was trying to make isn't that corporations are inherrently good and government is bad, it was to ask how are they different? They both are run/governed by ordinary men. Why would you trust one versus the other? If corporations are not founded on principles of freedom, what is to stop some powerful and corrupt corporations from simply capturing a government? And what is keeping men who run a government virtuous? Do they not have the same motives, failings, desires for profit, power, etc? The Founders understood this problem and thought we could perhaps get around it by keeping power divided and decentralized as much as possible. I believe anarcho-capitalists view their philosophy as doing just that...just on an even more micro scale.

 

[idiom]

Force can legitimately be used against those who use it illegitimately.

Nearly all of the problems with anarcho-capitalism stem from who and how 'legitimate' and illegitimate' force are defined. The NAP has a tonne of implicit assumptions in it that are usually glossed over.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Nearly all of the problems with anarcho-capitalism stem from who and how 'legitimate' and illegitimate' force are defined.

Exactly the same thing can be said of statism.

The NAP has a tonne of implicit assumptions in it that are usually glossed over.

Exactly the same thing can be said of any other justice principle.

Conclusion: There are no nice, tidy solutions (anarchistic or statist) that everyone - or even anyone - is going to be fully pleased with or unable to find deficiencies in.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

This. We have so far to go before we even need to argue (and divide) over how limited (or absent) government should be... It's good enough for me that more and more Americans are realizing that the federal government is out of control, and that a number of it's functions can be better left to the states, locales and private enterprise.

We just have so far to go in changing minds and those in power before we let our disagreements over what's purely theoretical at this point take hold.

Except when it comes to IP, apparently. Then it's okay to start threads to argue (and divide) over how limited (or absent) government should be.