Tu quoque? — jorndoe

That was the idea, yes.

one man - unscrupulous in nature - could occupy the sole position of government and all duty bound to it, and cause it to be used for what is socially deemed negative, controlling, or destructive. Now all goods and services are subject to this maligned pursuit. But if you have freedom of ability to produce or not produce what you want when you want, it now requires greater effort and coordination to ensure the average citizen is now subject to said pursuit. Make sense? That's the argument at least. — Outlander

Makes sense, but as I've been discussing above, there's more than one way to restrict freedom and government-type actions aren't even top of the list. This "freedom of ability to produce or not produce what you want when you want" is easily constrained by total monopoly over the means of production. Which is what you get in a capitalist state.

There are potential concerns that may or may not have eluded you, say, suggested by — jorndoe

Yep. So... Do they justify the cost of war? Same question. It's no good just listing a load of bad stuff and not weighing it in any way against the cost of the course of action you're advocating.

Either way, the Ukrainians said no. — jorndoe

What's with this obsession with what 'The Ukrainians' say? It's our decision to send weapons, our decision to support propaganda efforts, our decision to supply intelligence, our decision to avoid and block negotiations... these are all our decisions.

Stop hiding under the skirts of what 'The Ukrainians' say and have the balls to make up your own fucking mind.

Gravity is considered true, as is quantum physics but they do conflict.
Two truths can certainly conflict based on perspective.
An observer may experience a different, but equally valid truth but their reference frame may result in conflict when they are compared. — universeness

These are just two sets of raw data, not theories. It's a fact that measures of wealth inequality and absolute poverty are largely unaffected by the changes in political persuasion in the executive and legislature. It's the same pattern seen throughout the rest of the world too.

Steven Pinker's 75 charts and graphs have been described as:... — universeness

Yes. It's also been described as “embarrassing” and “feeble” (John Gray), "a dogmatic book that offers an oversimplified, excessively optimistic vision of human history” (David Bell), “poor scholarship” and “motivated reasoning” that “insults the Enlightenment principles he claims to defend.” (George Monbiot), and "dangerously erroneous" (Jeremy Lent)

Survival's Stephen Corry said

The data presented ... is at least contentious, where it’s not plain wrong. ... twenty percent of the data Pinker uses to categorize the violence of the entire planet’s tribal peoples (excluding ‘hunter-gatherers’) is derived from a single anthropologist, Napoleon Chagnon – whose data has been severely criticized for decades.

Notwithstanding which, I'm not sure what the fact that some people liked the book has to do with anything we're discussing.

Well, it's just that my preferred way of opposing racism is the sort of radical socialism @Jacques disagrees with. Since we're deciding that anyone who doesn't agree with our preferred methods of opposing anything must be indirectly supporting it, the only conclusion I'm left with is that @Jacques must be supporting racism, since they disagree with my preferred method of opposing it.

Or... we could agree that it's puerile to just simplify a very complex issue into "anyone who isn't frantically chucking guns at the problem is basically a war criminal", and that there are a range of solutions which different people support from different perspectives, not all of which are militaristic.

Everyone's here taking friendly potshots at one another, soft jabs to the midsection — Outlander

@Jacques accused me and pretty much my entire social group of supporting a ruthless war criminal responsible for the massacre at Bucha. Can you explain in what way that's a "friendly potshot"?

well go tell them to stop fighting then. Shoo, off you go. — jorndoe

Well, I was actually thinking of lobbying my politicians to stop drip feeding them weapons, stop discouraging negotiations, stop promoting the approach with propaganda and censorship...

But you know, I'm sure your 'shoo' idea is really good, I'll certainly give it some serious consideration.

Like indirectly supporting Putin. For example, right-wing and left-wing extremists are united in calling for an end to supporting the Ukrainians' struggle for freedom with weapons. — Jacques

Ah, I see. Much the same way as you support racism then?

the money measures you gave DO conflict with the overall historical evidence highlighted on the Steven Pinker chart I posted. — universeness

They can't 'conflict'. They're both true.

The Greek/Roman/Mayan/Egyptian civilisations would suffice for my purposes.
The how, would be the economic power of your average citizen at the time and the level of governmental protection they had regarding their legal status, their educational opportunities and their personal well-being. — universeness

Well then no. I don't agree. The 'economic power' of your average citizen hasn't changed all that much, if anything it's probably got worse. Taking into account that the majority of the world's population are in the developing world, I don't think those people now have more 'economic power' than they had prior to colonialism. Legal status I'd agree with in the timescales you specify (though I've no idea why you've decided to start at some random point thousands of years after the beginnings of human civilisation). Educational opportunities I'd say were very mixed - popular modern curricula are easier to access for most, but traditional skills have become harder to train in. Personal well-being is mixed. suicide rates are rising, as are rates of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Most subjective measures of well-being show a mixed picture at best.

I can tell you, with a very high personal credence level, what policies I think work and what efforts created the improvements many people NOW have in our world, that they did not have in earlier times. But you may not agree, perhaps because 'you' are part of the 'us' you refer to. Subjectivity, is forever present in threads such as this one. — universeness

Indeed.

He didn't say that. He said that there's no fundamental difference. — Michael

https://words.bighugelabs.com/significant Seventh synonym, first line.

There's no "objective measure" for how many people must be affected by something for that thing to matter. — Michael

Exactly.

So Chomsky's not wrong to say that there's no significant difference is he? Since there's no objective measure of significance against which you could argue.

What is wrong would be taking Chomsky's really important point (about the lack of progress on some really important issues), expressed rhetorically as a homogeneity of parties, and undermine it with mediocritac pedantry about local abortion laws.

But that was all YOU offered, statistics! — universeness

No, it wasn't all I offered. Parties change, the measures I gave haven't. It's easy to demonstrate a lack of effect. It's just hard to demonstrate the presence of one.

Would you not agree that since the days of the ancients, the level of global poverty has significantly reduced for a large portion of the global population — universeness

Depends when the "days of the ancients" were, and how you want to measure poverty.

and that this has been hard fought for? — universeness

Sure. But that tells us nothing about which policies worked and which were entirely incidental, or even hampered progress.

You just seem to be arguing that because the differences between Republicans and Democrats don't affect you then they're not significant. I disagree. — Michael

None of the issues I mentioned affect me. I'm perfectly well off financially, I'm white, and I'll be dead before climate change has any effect.

It's not selfishness. It's an objective assessment of the number of people affected.

Democrats are doing what they can to protect abortion rights, but where they don't have enough votes the Republican's anti-abortion policies are preventing protections for abortion. — Michael

Agreed.

Doing "what they can" with the votes they can muster in half the states (with little chance of achieving any stability, or consistency), and all of which overturned as easily as Roe was, at the drop of a hat, is not what I call "significant"

Fuck all on climate change, fuck all on poverty, fuck all on inequality... I really do feel for those poor women who find themselves in need of an abortion in Republican states (or God forbid, a Republican presidency), but their plight, no matter how much we might sympathise with it on a personal level, is a pin-prick compared to the haemorrhage of climate change, rising inequality, militarism, Israeli occupation, modern slavery, drug crises, fuel monopolies... none of which show the slightest sign of being addressed by either party.

Abortion policy is a complete irrelevance when it comes to the major issues civilisation faces.

Wealth disparity isn't the only measure of the differences between political parties. — Michael

No, but I'm not disputing the differences. I'm disputing the significance of them.

the stats you highlight are globally true — universeness

Exactly. Further proving the point that it makes fuck all difference which party is in power.

we also have indicators of the hard work done by all humanists/socialists etc worldwide — universeness

No we don't. We have a statistic. Absolutely nowhere do we even have a correlation with any causative factors, let alone proof of the significance or fit of that correlation. It might, for all we know, be a result of the earth warming, or just the gradual growth of the economy.

See above.

You don't see a significant difference between Democrats wanting to codify abortion rights in law and Republicans passing laws against abortion that don't even allow for exceptions for rape or incest, or when it's a pregnant 10 year old? — Michael

Yes, now you mention it I do see a significant difference. The latter are some actual laws and the former are, as yet, empty promises.

Here's income inequality.



Notice any radical changes with the different parties in power? No, neither do I.

Here's the gap between black and white income.



Notice any radical 'Democrat-induced' closing of the gap during the years they were in power? No, neither do I.

Here's absolute poverty over time.



Notice any major ups and downs as political power swings? No, neither do I.

I think Count Timothy von Icarus did a good job at outlining some of the major differences:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/802555 — universeness

Not disputing there's differences. The argument was about how significant they are, and I see no one addressing that beyond just declaring them to be.

there is a significant difference. — Michael

No there isn't.

Great conversation... Really nailing this topic. I expect readers are riveted.

They're significantly different on welfare, healthcare, guns, abortion, and LGBT issues. — Michael

So the measure of significance is "Michael says so"?

When it comes to welfare, healthcare, guns, abortion, and LGBT issues, there is a huge difference between Democrats and Republicans, and so it’s overly simplistic to say that because they’re both pro-business that it’s a one party state. — Michael

It's obviously a simplification, but to support the idea that it's "overly" simplistic you'd have to put some measures to those differences. What exactly has been done to improve welfare (or worsen it), what exactly has been done to improve healthcare (or worsen it), etc... And by what margin have improvements been seen.

I think it would be childish to suggest that Chomsky literally meant that the two parties were identical in every way. He was obviously making the point that they weren't significantly different. So a counter-argument has to contain measures of significance, not merely the presence of differences.

I'm not going to quote, it'd seem like fingerpointing. — jorndoe

That's literally the point of the quote function.

They don't conspire, they buy boats — Quentin · Cube (1997)

Ahh! I see now. You "disagree". That's when you think one thing is the case but other people think something else is.

Do I have to explain how disagreement works now too. I'll try and find a diagram

The state is an alien Kafkaesque entity, remote and distanced from oneself.
(Almost like an implicit definition.)
What's up with that? — jorndoe

Well... it's that the state is an alien Kafkaesque entity, remote and distanced from oneself.

So people are saying that.

Is there something you don't understand about people saying things which seem to them to be the case?

I'm not sure I can really explain it to you any more simply. Let's say I look out of my window and there seems to be a deer in the garden. I might say "there's a deer in the garden". Does that help? People say things that seem to them to be the case.

... It's like I'm having to explain how language works...

Well, possibly... But since everyone is in the same boat as me, then it's everyone's free choice to give that money to the government (as opposed to a charity doing what they think is best). So the money I'm taking is money given freely to those projects, since it's a free choice to pay the tax to the government and not to some other charitable organisation.

People can payroll donate too (if they're employed), so it's not limited to the self-employed. If one doesn't like what the government are doing with one's excess income, one can give it to a charity one prefers (or set one up oneself).

So the only people whose money I seem to be taking for my schemes are people who didn't have a scheme of their own they'd prefer to give it to, or people who had more money that they needed anyway.

I can think of two main counter-arguments;

1. The low tax bracket isn't high enough for a comfortable life.
If this is the case then there's a problem in that people cannot avoid tax by charitable donation since they need the 80% remaining to pay for their own well-being. This would, however, be a case for raising the tax thresholds, not for abandoning tax altogether (a much more achievable goal).
2. Tax on savings is a problem (I already have savings and already paid tax on them before I started these schemes, before I was even aware I could do it). I don't use my savings, but I'm aware that they're a safety net which others starting this scheme from scratch would lack. Walking the tightrope without a safety net is quite a different prospect to doing so with one, even if one never falls! But again, this is a much more remediable problem to focus on than taxes as a whole.

Basically, some people have excess wages - more than they need to live off, and other people in the community have needs (bad luck, disability, etc), and the community has collective projects (its air, water, infrastructure, education/innovation, etc) from which people benefit collectively (ie they can't directly pay for what they use).

The question (for me) is how to manage this situation with the maximum autonomy, as the autonomy of the individual is a primary right in my view.

I don't think taxes are a major problem here because it seems that my excess wages can be easily distributed to charities dealing with those other matters instead of the government, and I can exercise my complete autonomy in deciding where they go. I might have to fiddle a few things, jump through a few hoops (like Charity commission registration, funding applications, etc), but by-and-large I can take care of my obligations to the rest of my community in whatever way I see fit using my excess income.

Hence my contention that there's bigger fish to fry in regards to offences against the autonomy of the individual. Tax doesn't seem to be a problem, I can pay whomever I want to carry out my social ethical obligations, it needn't be the government...

...but a school leaver looking to work as a farm labourer, for example, has their working conditions and pay entirely determined by a monopoly of agricultural commodities sellers and investors who fix the price of goods, and so fix the price the farmer can get, and so fix the limit to the labourer's wage. He's had his freedom reduced to a far greater extent - he might not even be able to choose where to live (follow the work), he certainly couldn't choose what to do with his time (14hr days are not uncommon in agricultural labour), he can't choose how to spend his money (monopolies of energy suppliers, banking, manufacturers etc all constrain his choices), he can't choose how to educate his children, ...he can't choose anything I consider important. And it's not the government restricting any of those choices. It's not tax (he probably doesn't pay any). It's capitalists. It's the owning classes setting the conditions which restrict his choices.

Chomsky is just doing what demagogues always do, boiling down a complex problem filled with feedback loops, shifting alliances, histories of unintended consequences from reforms, etc. into a simple story of "bad, evil, greedy people make society bad. The truth is that everything is coordinated behind the scenes by a monolithic group. Thus, if we all unite we can replace the evil people with the righteous (us) and all shall be well forever." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I know!

Imagine taking a really complex scenario like, say, border conflicts in a ex-Soviet region (just an example), and trying to just boil down all the "feedback loops, shifting alliances, histories of unintended consequences from reforms, etc" into one bad guy who's responsible for it all, and one set of good guys who can do no wrong and will win out in the end just because they're so righteous...

Who'd do such a thing?

... Oh, hang on... https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12469/ukraine-crisis

Ok? — frank

Good. Glad we understand each other. Perhaps give things a little more thought before posting next time? It might make for a better exchange.

In fact, I hadn't even thought. The farm gets basic payment scheme (government money) which isn't even charitable. So the net flow is even greater than I'd first thought. Tens of thousands.

You’re using money that is already taxed. — NOS4A2

No, that's not how tax relief works. The money that I would have paid in income tax is paid instead to the charity. The government doesn't get it, the charity does. My charity. The one I chose of my own free will. I've literally avoided giving the tax to the government by giving it to a charity of my choice.

If you do not earn enough money to pay tax, you probably won’t get tax relief on your donation. — NOS4A2

That's right, but if I didn't earn enough I wouldn't pay any taxes at all.

Still not paying taxes to the government.

Also, you're ignoring the many ways in which I extract tax money from the government for my own purposes. I get thousands in grants. Way more than I ever pay (my scheme isn't perfect so sometimes I pay a small amount of tax).

The net flow of tax money is from the government to me (my schemes), not the other way round.

After having read it, it doesn’t appear that you’re avoiding or evading taxes at all. — NOS4A2

I don't pay the government any net tax. How is that not avoiding tax?

All the ones that moved their manufacturing overseas. — frank

They haven't left America then. They're still subject to any laws America might implement. For example the modern slavery legislation in my country includes overseas labour.

According to the government, your words alone might make any scrupulous tax man report you to the authorities, submitting you to investigation — NOS4A2

Have you read my post? I use government schemes to avoid paying tax.

A concerned, ethical individual (which is what we were talking about) need not pay any net tax (in my country at least)

I have noticed that both right-wing and left-wing radicals get along very well when it comes to restricting citizens' freedoms and to support dictators. — Jacques

Really? Like whom?

I have nothing against conservatives or progressives as long as they are moderate and as long as they prioritize the preservation of civil liberties above all else. — Jacques

Whatbdo you mean by 'civil' liberties here? Is, for example, freedom from deprivation a 'civil' liberty?

I care about democracy and autocracy. In other words, if someone acts against civil liberties, I don't care if he is left or right. — Jacques

I don't see how the one follows from the other. It's perfectly possible for laws opposing civil liberties to receive sufficient support to be implemented in democracies.

There's nothing intrinsic about the method by which a government is chosen which prevents that government from restricting civil liberties.

American corporations have been doing that for a good while now. — frank

Which ones did you have in mind?

Tax evasion and tax fraud aren’t crimes in the UK? — NOS4A2

Fraud is, tax evasion isn't. As I said, I largely avoid paying tax.

You also disclosed that you profit from tax collection insofar as you draw from the government’s finances. — NOS4A2

I don't profit. One cannot simply take government money. But I can take government money to satisfy many of my own personal goals, so long as they're vaguely charitable. I've had thousands in government money to support efforts I think are worthwhile.

tax evasion and tax fraud is still punishable by law and carries with it a range of life-altering penalties, from fines to prison sentences. — NOS4A2

No it isn't. As I've said to @Mikie above, I pay virtually no tax and it's all perfectly legal.

Oh, indeed. I hadn't even thought of those. I was just thinking of staying under the tax bracket (is there such a thing in the US?). In England, if one earns lower than a set amount, then one pays no tax. Charitable donations are tax deductible, so I just give away my excess earnings to charity. I don't know if this arrangement is universal, but it works in England. We have this scheme for employment, and the self-employed can use Gift-Aid.

I obviously still pay goods taxes, but one only need take on a few fund-able projects (I help run a community farm, for example) and one can draw out government money for good purposes.

It also just so happens that one of my consultancies is for a government department. I charge them the full going rate (way more than I need) and give the excess away to tax deductible projects. I'm effectively taking money from the government.

I haven't done the maths, but I reckon I must in total, be a net draw on the government's finances to the tune of several thousand ponds a year. I certainly don't net 'contribute' to the pot, and the government would have to work very hard indeed to persuade me to start doing so when the alternatives are so much better right now.

That's a difficult calculation, and no one can be sure of the numbers that lie in the future. — unenlightened

Nonetheless. Throwing our hands in the air and pretending there's no cost to consider isn't an option.

given the particular history of Ukraine under Soviet rule, I can understand any Ukrainian's calculation that a few million dead is a price well worth paying. — unenlightened

Funny how when justifying war, evidence from 1930 suddenly becomes relevant, but when talking about the state of the Far-Right in Ukraine, apparently 2014 is too far in the past to be relevant.

We have, as I've repeatedly mentioned, a direct, relevant and current example of Russian occupation. Crimea has been occupied by Russia for eight years. It's part of Ukraine.

It's telling that to justify a position you're having to draw in evidence from a completely different government in a completely different era and ignore the direct evidence of this exact government going exactly the thing we're discussing barely a few years ago.

Do the Russians have good reason to fear German military involvement in Poland? Afterall, I'm sure they all remember Stalingrad.

It's borderline racist to claim that because people in the past who just happen to be from the same country committed some atrocity, their decedents are likely to do the same. Imagine if I tried to claim some justification for Brexit on the grounds of the Germans having been Nazis.

if that was my history and someone was offering me some arms, I wouldn't be questioning their motives before accepting the offers. — unenlightened

Yes. But I'm not talking to Ukrainians. I'm talking to Westerners. What is it with this bizarre trend toward the absolution of all moral duty into "whatever the Ukrainians want"? It's morally bankrupt.

A point that’s almost always glossed over when discussing wage jobs. “You’re free to go elsewhere, you consented to it.” Way too cavalier, and ignores reality.

As justified as saying “don’t like the state? Leave the country.” Which I’ll often say; the connection is not readily understood, in my experience. — Mikie

Yes. Plus, as I've just pointed out above. One needn't pay tax either if one is committed to not supporting some government or other. One can organise one's finances to become a net draw on government finances.

That's fair enough.

The current status quo involves a massive amount of coercion too. I suppose we just value the two differently. — Tzeentch

Yes, it seems that way.

It's all hypothetical of course, but assuming violence is completely off the table as we've discussed, and that means you are not being deprived of your basic needs, why even care about big corporations at that point?

Let them build their sand castles.

The difference to me is, I would not be forcibly made complicit in what the big corporations get up to, in the way I am now being made complicit in what my government gets up to.

This is a real problem for me. Because the state makes me a part of its wicked scheme, I am forced to care, and protest. — Tzeentch

As I said, I think the corporations make us part of their 'wicked schemes' using techniques other than threat of violence. they monopolise resources, for example, which forces us to take part in their system. They monopolise ecosystem services (such as air, rivers, ocean systems) which forces us to take part in their schemes.

From the very moment one farmer said "I own this bit" (picking the most fertile patch, the rest of the world not wanting to be part of that scheme has to live off 'the rest', the land slightly less fertile. The remaining hunter-gatherers are on the most desolate inhospitable land left, and they're still having it forcibly taken from them by corporations claiming ownership (legal trickery, usually). It's testament to their determination and skill that they're still around, but imagine how much easier and (most importantly) more of a reasonable choice their lives would have been with free reign over the most fertile land.

I'm an anarchist when it comes down to it, and I have a great deal of sympathy for your views on government. It's also probably true that without government to back them up, the corporations would never have amassed the power they have. But...

The problem is how we get there from here. Corporations now have that power, they have the resources and they have the land. So removing government influence at this stage seems more than a little reckless. It might work. It might call off their attack dog, so to speak and render them powerless. But I doubt they're going to give up so easily.

Take away the government's monopoly on violence and the corporations will fill that power vacuum in seconds (assuming they haven't already - private contractors outnumber the military of some states).

Take away the government's provision of benefit for the homeless, jobless, disabled and helpless and I suspect private charities would step up to a point, but;

a) there'd be a considerable harm during the transition, and

b) I strongly suspect that the majority of the funding would come from rich philanthropists and companies looking to 'ethics-wash' their image, both of whom are capable (especially without government regulation) of obtaining full monopolies on services. So you'd be paying anyway. If 'National Food Services' (the new food supplying monopoly which bought up all farmland in the country) decides some of its profits are going to help the poor, then helping the poor is part of the price you pay for food, like it or not. No different to taxes.

Again, it's the monopoly that give the institution its power to compel, not the type of institution. Corporations can engineer monopolies easily (especially without government rules banning it) It's easy for them to simply buy up all the mines, all the farmland, all the skilled labour, all the libraries...etc

This is a real problem for me. Because the state makes me a part of its wicked scheme, I am forced to care, and protest. — Tzeentch

I don't see how. I don't really pay any income tax, for example (a very small sum in reality). I pay goods taxes (VAT, Road, Fuel, Alcohol), but those are added by the vendor, so not my mandate. Barely any of my wages go to the government, and I don't vote, so I'm quite content that I'm not complicit in their schemes.

A difference would be, in one case resistance is met with possible bodily harm and your loss of freedom. In the other, resistance seems perfectly acceptable, and the price, at most, seems material possessions(?).

That's a big difference, because to me resistance to being made complicit is an ethical duty. — Tzeentch

I think this is a good point. The risk of dissent matters and risking bodily harm is clearly worse than risking further loss of goods - to a point (starvation-level loss of goods is identical to physical harm).

But, above. I pay minimal tax. I dissent from funding the government's schemes, I haven't received any bodily harm yet.

Yeah, thieves grabbed more than land. For some reason, I'd (personally) prefer the "breadbasket" under Kyiv than the Kremlin, regardless of what Ukraine is the "breadbasket" of. Poor assessment on my part? — jorndoe

What an offensively ignorant comment. Acting as if we were allocating ownership like an interview board assessing candidates.

There is a cost to keeping it in the hands of Kyiv. This is the cost...



The question, which everyone here is so studiously avoiding, is not "who would we prefer in control of wheat production", nor "whose flag would we prefer over parliament", nor "which group would we prefer consulted over the future of the region". It's not about our preferences - anyone with a modicum of intelligence and decency can see that Russia are worse than Ukraine - it's about whether the chance of achieving those preferences by use of conventional land war is worth the cost.

Can you answer that? Your preference for having wheat production in the hands of Ukraine rather than Russia - Is it worth the cost of a protracted land war? Do the benefits actually outweigh the harms? Is there a less harmful route to the same ends?

It's a pathetic indictment of the level of intellectual discussion that this thread keeps getting dragged back round to the sort of debate a three-year-old might have about who's the bad guy.

Basically, yes. — Tzeentch

So my version of what I think is my property (shared property) involves massively more 'theft' by private corporations than by governments, hence my different priorities. In terms of getting that property at least cared for, I need an entity big and tough enough to fight the corporations. Government are the only contenders. They're very much the lesser of two evils in terms of environmental management, and I consider the environment to be at least partially my property.

that the fact that the individual can try to resist, so therefore the state does not hold a monopoly on violence is misleading. There is obviously some threshold at which point the entry barrier becomes too high to overcome, at which point we start viewing things as monopolies. That goes for companies and states alike. — Tzeentch

Yes, this is where I was going with this idea. Effective monopolies in this respect don't have to be very unified or cohesive to have the impact on people's choices, and it's the impact we're concerned about here. It can simply be a facet of an economic system that some strategy is in the best interest of a specific power group. They will all make that decision, and so act as a monopoly. When the government exercise their monopoly on violence, they don't all agree, and they change entirely every few years. Its the institution that acts as a monopoly... So 'CEOs' can equally act as an institution, shopkeepers, estates, etc... You only need look at the way pay disputes are settled. There's only two relevant powers, the unions and the employer's representatives, those two groups act as a monopoly on those services when determining pay and conditions.

To touch back on the topic - the capitalists become an effective monopoly on the means of production which power is used to exploit workers.

Basically, the only reason there's such mass poverty and misery is because the 'entry barrier' as you put it, for resisting wage-slavery options presented by the capitalist class is too high. People can resist only theoretically (the same as people can theoretically resist the violence of the government), but in practice it's just too hard for most so they are forced, against their will, to work according to the terms set by the capitalist class. Pointing to a few entrepreneurs and self-sufficiency buffs to show that there's no absolute stranglehold on the supply of basic needs would be like me pointing to the few countries in civil war and saying "see, there's no monopoly on violence".

There is an effective monopoly on the means of production - the land and raw materials required to make one's own living - and that monopoly is used to extract labour people would otherwise prefer not to give.

Possibly so. In a theoretical case where violence is taken out of the picture completely, I would argue distribution by those remaining forms of power is preferable, albeit not perfect either. — Tzeentch

Why? Bearing in mind we're talking about the threat of violence here. Most people are rational enough to do what the man the with the big gun tells them, so actual bodily harm is not a concern (numbers of people physically harmed by our governments in the Western world is relatively small). So we have threat of violence vs theft. You either have your stuff taken because someone bigger than you demands it (and you're sensible enough not to fight), or you have your stuff taken by someone more deceptive than you when you're not looking.

In each case you can do something about it (get stronger or get cleverer), but those options are limited (there'll always be someone stronger than you and always be someone cleverer than you). So you get your stuff taken in either case, and there's little you can do about it. I just can't really see the big difference.

However, the means of arbitration that states use - unilateral imposition under threat of violence - is arguably the absolute worst way to do it, hence my protests. — Tzeentch

As above really, I'm just not seeing it. Threat of violence and theft look exactly the same to me - they have the same outcome and the same limited ability to prevent it.

In one scenario, I have my labour/stuff taken by threat of violence by the government who then use it for their own ends (some of which benefit me) and I have a small amount of say in what they do.

In the other scenario I have my labour/stuff taken from me using manipulation/deception/thievery by the capitalists (owners of the means of production) who then use it entirely for their own profit (some of which benefits me) and I have no say whatsoever in what they do.

I'm not seeing how the second scenario is preferable.