wrote:
would hate to be in a position to look into the minds of many people and see what they are looking for. But I would venture to say, they are not looking for people beaten up, or raped, or robbed, or killed. They are looking for equality, solidarity, and all kinds of ~ity. But they know the road is long to achieve that, and many things must be laid down for the paving of that road: education, not just formal, but about the human nature. Eradicating illicit drug trade. Eradicating extreme exploitation (slavery). etc.

What I suggest for you to learn how a privileged lady in the upper echelons of society can be motivated to preach tolerance, is to read the book "Les Miserables" in your language, I am sure it's been translated into that from French. In it, a man gets out of prison; wonders down the road, and gets overnight stay in a wealthy man's home. He gets up at night, steals a silver candle-holder, and takes off. The cops get him, take him to the rich old man's house. The rich old man immediately sizes up the situation, and says, "My good man, you forgot to take the other silver candle-holder to go with the one I gifted you with!" And to the bufflement of the cops, they need to release him, and he wonders away now with two silver candle-holders.

Another suggestion for you, seeing your attitude has been established, and i can't change it any way I try, is for you to join the Hitlerjugend that has probably sprung up in your country and you find solace and understanding with your personal views shared by many there.

I answer
First of all, thank you for a reply I really do appreciate!
Second: the sad thing in my home country, I think you can guess which, the small nazi-like party that used to have very few followers now is almost the biggest party in my country. Stories about kids of refugees attacking totally unknown "white" kids, beating them, urinating on them even raping them along with a tremendous lot of shootings among criminal gangs of kids of immigrants have created a racism far greater than I experienced growing up during the later decades of the last millenia.
Our government is mainly social democrats and people there have had a very permissive attitude to immigration. They do get a tremendous lot of shit for the situation, but those guys have really tried to cope with being a country of empathy but at the same time get a decent assimilation.

The guys really not having any borders are eg a lot of my facebook friends, that i have due to my class journey, marriage and interest in humanities. People from wealthy academical homes that still say "we cannot wait for assimilation we have to let all suffering people come here"l. Like - do you have a brain??? - i do not of course answer that because of eg family friendship. But listen, If it gets total chaos here - It is really near that, even the big socialist newspapers admit it on their home pages, other western countries will hear about this. Will they be prone to receive refugees???

Maybe reading that book will make me understand how these people think. I cannot discuss it directly with them.

Third: May I guess that you grew up in a prosperous, academical background? Your initial post suggests that the empathy was the main reason to go left. What one as a guy from poorer backgrounds that really do not understand his new neighbourhood then asks is - Is is conceptually like the guys with empathy becomes left and the guys without become right? This is of course stupid, but can you - if you are from academic background - elaborate on the process of selecting view here?

I'm from both an academic and a dirt poor background. My father was the fourth of five children of a widow. The family of six lived in a one-room house with dirt floor (there was no flooring or basement), and they lived in abject poverty. He hired himself out practically as a slave to fellow students, in order to be able to finish high school because in his time you had to pay your way through high school in our country (Hungary). His only choice of further studies was via seminary. He finished only three of the five years when he realized he was not going to be able to hold to the vow of celibacy, and opted out. He went to war, came home, married my mother, worked, and embarked on a night course and finished university by obtaining a law degree. He was hired by the communist government to serve in the diplomatic service, because he learned and spoke seven languages.

My mom started her life as the daughter of an extemely wealthy land user. Her father started drinking, debauching and gambling, and by the time she was ten years of age, he had seen the bottom of his money, and my mom's mother had to leave her husband in disgrace. The entire family was sent to Auschwitz, and only my mom and her two cousins came back. She had been courted by my father before the war. He was only tolerated in her upper-echelon family because the family figured that he, being an RC, could save her life. In the ghetto where they were sent, before deportation, my dirt-poor parental Christian grandmother stole in food for them, otherwise they would have starved to death.

This is my background. Do what you can with it.

Now I will check your stories of immigrants beating up local kids, raping them and urinating on them; how often that happens; and what happens to the perpetrators of such crimes. I will also check your stories on drug use and related crimes in your Scandinavian country. I assume it's either Norway, Sweden or Finland. Estonia, Latvia and LIthuania are considered Baltic countries; I don't know if Denmark is counted as Baltic, Scandinavian or simply just Northern European.

Are they free to not do what they're told? — praxis

Are the slaves free to not do what they are told?

What does freedom have to do anything with responsibility? Please explain why freedom is a prerequisite for acting responsibly.

That's A. B. is that slaves have a choice too, whether to carry out a task they are told to do. They can opt to carry out the task, or else opt for punishment. That's not a good freedom, but a degree of freedom of choice nevertheless.


And C. is that not every slave, historically, has been subjected to constant supervision. A slave may have been charged to take a flock of sheep to meadow and return them back home for the night. He was unsupervised during the grazing. So he WAS responsible for his work to be done properly.

When elements of retribution or revenge are added, I think it turns clearly into an act of violent coercion in its own right. — Tzeentch

I agree completely. Retributive "justice" is injustice.

It is exactly the element of reprisal that makes governments coercive. Do not pay taxes and one gets fined, or worse, thrown in jail. — Tzeentch

Agreed.

Do you agree that evicting someone from their home for failure to pay someone else is likewise coercive: "Give me money, or get out, or else"? Or someone "evicting" someone from their workplace for similar reasons: if workers in a business decide not to hand the money that customers paid them over to the owner, so that the owner can give them a small fraction of it back, but instead keep it all for themselves, and the owner says "then get out, or else", is that not coercive? Usually, it's a government enforcing the "or else" there in those situations, but even if there nominally is no government, if the owners themselves can get away with enforcing that "or else" themselves, then they effectively are a government themselves.

That's the kind of coercion that socialists are opposed to. The original socialists, libertarian socialists aka anarchists, think we just need to stop there being governments that do that kind of stuff, or any other kind of coercive stuff, in the first place. State socialists in contrast think we need a powerful monopolistic government (a "state" in the usual terminology) in order to keep private owners from effectively becoming little warlord states of their own, or else using their influence to corrupt a nominally democratic state.

(I see the motive behind the state socialists there, but I think, as I expect you'll agree, that authority inevitably breeds inequality, so having a state inevitably foils the socialist objective. But I also think, and I wonder if you would agree, that inequality just as inevitably breeds authority, so allowing inequality to fester inevitably foils the libertarian objective. We can only move toward either objective by embracing the other as well, stopping the reinforcement of capital and state, and then withering both away together).

Who should determine this, if it can be determined at all? Who or what can be trusted with arbitration of such things? These are great obstacles for me, since humans are fallible, governments prone to corruption over time.

Certainly this produces a lot of food for thought. — Tzeentch

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised with how open-minded you've been about all of this in this discussion. I hadn't been paying close attention to you before, but I had the impression that you were the usual right-libertarian capitalism apologist. So far, you seem much better than that, and I'm enjoying our conversations.

Now I will check your stories of immigrants beating up local kids, raping them and urinating on them; how often that happens; and what happens to the perpetrators of such crimes. I will also check your stories on drug use and related crimes in your Scandinavian country. I assume it's either Norway, Sweden or Finland. Estonia, Latvia and LIthuania are considered Baltic countries; I don't know if Denmark is counted as Baltic, Scandinavian or simply just Northern European. — god must be atheist

Its Sweden, to make your checkup easier.
Take my word for it, I am NOT a coverup racist who goes looking for arguments to create bad publicity. I have worked multinatioally for decades and love people from different cultures, and do find soulmates from all over the world. What really hurts me is, first of all the suffering and hate between us indigenous and the newcomers. And we do make an extremely bad example for immigration.
If you want to, I can send you articles. Or you can check any of the big newspapers. Aftonbladet.se is free, the closest to social democracy.

Since it is very hard to get answers to this I have began read autobiograpies of famous people born rich and gone left. I read de Beauvoir a couple of years ago, but had to stop when I read about how she made mayhem at home but noone interrupted. She was same age as my grandfather, and if one of his daughters or sons had behaved like that, my great-grandfather, the blacksmith would have had none of it.

Sartres mother was rather the opposite, frightened to subordination, but Sartre himself was spoiled beyond comprehension, if one believes what Sartre himself recites. OK, he was the opposite of DeBeauvoir, little lord Fauntleroy with no father , but still, mo authority, no consequeces if you did bad.

Thats as far as I have come in Le Mots. Extremely well written, and I really looking forward to the further adventures of you g Jean-Paul, and hopefully some answers to my questions.

I started with Finnland, and the article came from BBC, then went over to Sweden, and the search term brought me this wonderfully infomative response:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden

It's really good, informative, I believe what it says.

What it basically says is as follows:
- all immigrants, recent immigrants, commit crimes more per capita than the indigenous. The ratio is about 2:1, but the more hineous the crime, the higher the ratio. (number of crimes committed by immigrant criminals divided by total number of immigrants) divided by (number fo crimes committed by the indigenous divided by the total number of the indigenous.) In shoplifting, libel, plagiarism, jaywalking and littering, the immigrants lead by a narrow margin. Come to murder and rape, they do it about four times more often as a body than the indigenous. The ratio averages to two times only, because there are much more many shoplifters in both groups than murderers. Car thefts, leaving a restaurant without paying for the meal, and resisting arrest are about 2:1.

The only thing I can bring against your accusation of immigrants is that immigrants commit crimes against themselves much more often than against the indigenous. Of course when a Black man, god forbid, rapes a blonde 12-year-old triplet, the blood in the eyes of the Arians is going to form. But it happens, and I am sorry to say this so coolly and clinically, because my heart goes out to all rape victims, only a fraction of the times compared how often it happens by immigrants to immigrants, and by Arians to Arians. Black on white is just really newsworthy, because it sells newspapers, to inflate the crimes of the immigrants against the Arians. Most newspapers are in the business of selling newspapers, and the reporting is skewed for this reason, althogh they won't outright lie, but they do select and give more exposure to those stories that tickle people's fancy.

The statistics are all there in this article I quoted.

On the other hand, the sad truth is that most perpetrators of immigrant-committing crimes are uneducated, don't speak the langauge, are unfamiliar with the expectations of normal behaviour by the locals, and they are distrustful of it, and are not willing to meld in. However, when their children, or their children's children go to university in Sweden, and come out with a medical degree, they still insist on the old ways, but the grandchild wont' give a damn.

I believe that the immigrants will acclimatize to adjust to Swedish society not within a generation, but two generations hence. They may even drop their religion or change it. This is the way for every large immigrant group in a new country.

I am here in Canada from Hungary. I have seen this happen in the Hungarian community: the community was strong and stuck together due to language barrier and other societal barriers; but the first generation that grew up here, hardly spoke the old country's language, and the next, not at all. I don't have statistics on crime frequency of Hungarian immigrants, but that could be looked up, too. I know from hear-say that Hungarian kids who immigrated as children, had the reputation among their peers that they stole easily, without any apparent conscience or feeling of guilt. That I can see how it happened: In Hungary during its Socialist regime, everyone stole from work, whatever they could lift, because there was no sense of "private property" since the workplace was said to be owned by the state. The state in most people's opinion then was not a person, so you did not offend it by stealing from it -- hence the country of thieves.

To wit, there were 125 cases of rape in Sweden in a given period after 2015, and 85 of them were committed by immigrants. Not all the immigrants' victims were indigenous. And as in every other country, only a fractoin of the rapes was reported, and of that fraction, only a fraction ended in conviction.

The article also mentioned that in a given period, half a million calls were made by police to domestic disputes, while nly 1% (five thousand) of these responses were to immigrant places. This is a skewed statistics for the liberal left, just like the black-on-white rape is a skewed statistic for the racists. The reason so few calls are made by immigrants is explained by their not trusting the system, not knowing the language, not being able to detach themselves from their peers (so they fear much harsher retribution after the police leaves following their visit due to a call), and perhaps even not even knowing how to handle a telephone.

If you’re struggling to say that there are degrees of freedom I doubt anyone will dispute this profound insight. There are people more free than me, for instance, and I can only hope that they’re more responsible than I am.

Do you agree that evicting someone from their home for failure to pay someone else is likewise coercive: "Give me money, or get out, or else"? Or someone "evicting" someone from their workplace for similar reasons: if workers in a business decide not to hand the money that customers paid them over to the owner, so that the owner can give them a small fraction of it back, but instead keep it all for themselves, and the owner says "then get out, or else", is that not coercive? — Pfhorrest

An important element that I think needs to be considered here is whether the supposed coercion is not the result of a voluntary agreement that has taken place in the past.

When someone pays a landlord so they can live on their property, it is implied in the agreement that whenever they can no longer pay the landlord, they can no longer live on their property. Presumably, they know the terms of the agreement beforehand, and voluntarily choose to go ahead with it.

The same seems to be true for the workplace example. One makes a voluntary agreement with the workplace owner to do labour in exchange for wages.

In these cases, it seems both sides should be able to end the agreement, should either side fail to meet their end of the deal. After all, it also seems normal that a worker should not have to work if their boss does not pay them.

So I don't think these examples are strictly coercive, even though I could think of many ways such situations can become coercive or immoral. For example, if a side alters the terms of the agreement knowing the other side is in no position to object. Or if one side acts with the foreknowledge that the other side will not be able to fulfill their end of the deal.

Note that in the case of government, there never was any such agreement. One is born involuntarily and made part of a state without one's consent.

Usually, it's a government enforcing the "or else" there in those situations, but even if there nominally is no government, if the owners themselves can get away with enforcing that "or else" themselves, then they effectively are a government themselves. — Pfhorrest

I think this is true.

The original socialists, libertarian socialists aka anarchists, think we just need to stop there being governments that do that kind of stuff, or any other kind of coercive stuff, in the first place. State socialists in contrast think we need a powerful monopolistic government (a "state" in the usual terminology) in order to keep private owners from effectively becoming little warlord states of their own, or else using their influence to corrupt a nominally democratic state. — Pfhorrest

Until humanity loses its desire to force its will upon others (a distant, distant utopia), I think anarchy can achieve only chaos until the power vacuum is inevitably filled up and new governments are formed.

However, powerful governments are something I am strongly opposed to (unless it is somehow based on strict consensuality between it and its subjects!). As we've discussed, while I can accept governments as a necessary evil in the absence of a better alternative, I see their power as illegitimate. Power has a tendency to consolidate, grow and corrupt; none of these things I wish to see happen to something I find undesirable in the first place.

Furthermore, a look at history warns us of the dangers of powerful governments. We tend to forget that when we say much blood has been spilled in the name of religion and ideology, all of those wars have a common denominator.

The choice between coercion by the individual and coercion by government is an interesting one, but there's not a doubt in my mind that the evils committed by individuals are utterly dwarfed by the evils committed by governments.

But I also think, and I wonder if you would agree, that inequality just as inevitably breeds authority, so allowing inequality to fester inevitably foils the libertarian objective. — Pfhorrest

I think this is true, but I also think it is a very interesting discussion in its own right. This reply is already getting a bit more lengthy than I had intended, but maybe we can come back to this at some later point.

I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised with how open-minded you've been about all of this in this discussion. I hadn't been paying close attention to you before, but I had the impression that you were the usual right-libertarian capitalism apologist. So far, you seem much better than that, and I'm enjoying our conversations. — Pfhorrest

That feeling is mutual!

The choice between coercion by the individual and coercion by government is an interesting one, but there's not a doubt in my mind that the evils committed by individuals are utterly dwarfed by the evils committed by governments. — Tzeentch

This is interesting but unclear what exactly what you mean. Could you elaborate?

This is interesting but unclear what exactly what you mean. Could you elaborate? — praxis

I'm talking about wars, atrocities, that sort of thing.

Okay war, I just looked up some quick estimates and it looks like there were over 16k reported murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the U.S. in 2018. 15 Americans were killed in the Afgan war in 2018. What am I missing?

If you look at the 20th century the numbers killed by government are beyond enormous - more than even the worst murderers could dream of. I think that's what Tzeentch means.

@Tzeentch I've always found the phrase "necessary evil" a little puzzling. Evil is really a religious word, and if you examine it religiously it really can never be necessary. Like if a doctor needs to cut off a man's arm because otherwise he'd die due to frostbite we might reflexively call this a "necessary evil" but there's really nothing evil about it - it's entirely necessary. If on the other hand the doctor just randomly cut off the man's arm for no apparent reason, yes, we'd call that evil. The evil lies in the complete lack of sense or necessity. Just something to think about.

If you look at the 20th century the numbers killed by government are beyond enormous - more than even the worst murderers could dream of. — BitconnectCarlos

So is there any actual data to back up this claim? And are we talking about all governments everywhere? If so, what exactly constitutes a government?

Do we really need to bring in the numbers killed by Stalin and Mao? Hitler?

When someone pays a landlord so they can live on their property, it is implied in the agreement that whenever they can no longer pay the landlord, they can no longer live on their property. Presumably, they know the terms of the agreement beforehand, and voluntarily choose to go ahead with it.

The same seems to be true for the workplace example. One makes a voluntary agreement with the workplace owner to do labour in exchange for wages. — Tzeentch

The true voluntariety of these agreements is something that socialists generally dispute, as there generally is not a reasonable alternative for many people besides to accept one of several largely indistinguishable bad deals. I don't want to rent from anybody, for instance, but my only practical options are to rent a house from somebody, or rent money from the bank with which to mortgage a house from somebody. I don't want to do any of those things, but I don't have enough money to do none of them, so I pick the one that sucks the least. "Your money or your life" is still a choice, but "your life" is not a reasonable choice, which is what makes that "choice" actually coercion.

There's also a question of what kind of agreements (contracts) should be valid to begin with. Presumably you would object to an agreement to do whatever somebody else tells you to in perpetuity, i.e. a contract selling oneself into slavery. Unlike most socialists, who reject property and contracts entirely, this is the approach that I take, to reconcile both of those with socialism and equality. I think that there are exceptions to the power to contract, just like there are exceptions to the claim against aggression, in both cases in the reflexive case: the claim against aggression has an exception for people who are themselves aggressing -- I can't attack you and then claim you have no right to fight me off -- and the power to contract has an exception for contracts regarding contractual terms, such as the agreement to do whatever you tell me to in the future, or an agreement to allow you to do something with me or my property (which, being my property, I have a right to exclude you from) whether I like it or not in the future. That last bit means that, among other things, contracts of rent (including interest, which is rent on money) are invalid: "I'll let you use my property" isn't a thing that can be a term of a contract, so you can't contractually owe me money for that "service".

That does mean I can kick you out of the house I was letting you live in... but it also means I have no use for that house that I'm not living in, since I can't contractually obligate anyone to pay me to live there, since I can't legally owe them the right to live there... without just making it their property, that is. So in lieu of being able to rent it out, I would have no better choice but to sell it... and nobody else will be buying it for a rental property, since they can't rent it out either... so I can only manage to sell it on terms that people who would otherwise be renters could afford.

I think that that revision to which contracts are valid would have far-reaching effects that basically incentivize people not to own things besides for their own use, and so achieve socialist ends -- the owners of things are the users of things -- without actually having to directly reassign ownership.

If you’re struggling to say that there are degrees of freedom I doubt anyone will dispute this profound insight. There are people more free than me, for instance, and I can only hope that they’re more responsible than I am. — praxis

Typical site user, praxis. I am not struggling with what you claim I struggle with. You, like almost all other users on this site, like to paraphrase my statements into making the argument entirely Strawman.

I am struggling with the question "why and how is freedom a necessary part of being responsible?" This is my question to you, as you claim that the lack of freedom removes the burden of responsibility. I can't answer this question; you can, since you outright insinuated the necessity of freedom in resposible behaviour.

Praxis, it is always easy to attribute to your argumenting opposition something he or she did not say, and then defeat that Strawman or make fun of it.

I suggest you stop doing that. Of course you don't have to stop doing that only because I say so. You have the freedom to say whatever occurs to you.

"Your money or your life" is still a choice, but "your life" is not a reasonable choice, which is what makes that "choice" actually coercion. — Pfhorrest

I like this.

Like if a doctor needs to cut off a man's arm because otherwise he'd die due to frostbite we might reflexively call this a "necessary evil" but there's really nothing evil about it - it's entirely necessary. If on the other hand the doctor just randomly cut off the man's arm for no apparent reason, yes, we'd call that evil. The evil lies in the complete lack of sense or necessity. Just something to think about. — BitconnectCarlos

Evil causes suffering. (So does God, but let's not get sidetracked.) Hence, any suffering is caused by evil. (Other than the ones caused by God.) Getting frostbitten or frozen to the point of needing to amputate an arm, is evil. Evil = bad.

One might say bad is only evil if there is intent behind it, or done with malice aforethought. Bad is only evil, when one has a freedom of choice to not cause suffering, yet one does. Well, frostbites are done with malice aforethought. If creation did not include frostbites caused by cold weather, then there would be no frosbites. Therefore the thought that preceded the frostbite and caused it was the part of creation, which I assume is a conscious act by God.

With a little mental muscle-work, all bad things can be proven to be evil. And yes, if you believe that there is evil, then you subscribe to religious views, as evil is a term of religious ideation.

The true voluntariety of these agreements is something that socialists generally dispute, as there generally is not a reasonable alternative for many people besides to accept one of several largely indistinguishable bad deals. I don't want to rent from anybody, for instance, but my only practical options are to rent a house from somebody, or rent money from the bank with which to mortgage a house from somebody. I don't want to do any of those things, but I don't have enough money to do none of them, so I pick the one that sucks the least. "Your money or your life" is still a choice, but "your life" is not a reasonable choice, which is what makes that "choice" actually coercion. — Pfhorrest

I am mostly on board with this, however I think there's a large grey area between what is unreasonable and what people find personally undesirable. Furthermore, we can have a discussion about what the remedy should be.

There's also a question of what kind of agreements (contracts) should be valid to begin with. — Pfhorrest

I struggle to understand why a contract that is voluntarily agreed upon by two mentally capable individuals would be deemed invalid, except for perhaps contracts that result in direct physical harm (or are made under threat thereof). Is this to protect individuals from their own bad decisions?

Such pre-emptive actions are a slippery slope for me.

And what of my involuntary contract with my government? This type of stance must have some implications for that too.

That does mean I can kick you out of the house I was letting you live in... but it also means I have no use for that house that I'm not living in, since I can't contractually obligate anyone to pay me to live there, since I can't legally owe them the right to live there... without just making it their property, that is. So in lieu of being able to rent it out, I would have no better choice but to sell it... and nobody else will be buying it for a rental property, since they can't rent it out either... so I can only manage to sell it on terms that people who would otherwise be renters could afford.

I think that that revision to which contracts are valid would have far-reaching effects that basically incentivize people not to own things besides for their own use, and so achieve socialist ends -- the owners of things are the users of things -- without actually having to directly reassign ownership. — Pfhorrest

Maybe you could elaborate a bit further on this, because I don't think I fully understand what you mean. Should everything I have no use for then belong to someone who does have a use for it?

I've always found the phrase "necessary evil" a little puzzling. Evil is really a religious word, and if you examine it religiously it really can never be necessary. Like if a doctor needs to cut off a man's arm because otherwise he'd die due to frostbite we might reflexively call this a "necessary evil" but there's really nothing evil about it - it's entirely necessary. If on the other hand the doctor just randomly cut off the man's arm for no apparent reason, yes, we'd call that evil. The evil lies in the complete lack of sense or necessity. Just something to think about. — BitconnectCarlos

I used the term rather liberally here to describe something which is undesirable but necessary to prevent a worse situation from occuring.

Sticking with your analogy though, it is worth considering whether the doctor's actions can be considered evil when made without the consent (or perhaps with express objection) of the man. The doctor may think he knows what is best for the man, but if the man disagrees then on what basis should his arm be cut off anyway?

Good point, if the mods screened all my posts for logical fallacies and deleted any they found then I wouldn’t have the choice of be being irresponsible in that way. However, they do allow a margin of freedom, in fact, so it is up to us to be responsible.

Does this example help you understand?

So apparently we are talking about all governments everywhere. So what qualifies as a government? Is a corporation a kind of government? A drug cartel? Organized crime? Any organization with a governing body?

I'm just talking about states here. I'm not including drug cartels, organized crime, or corporations in this count.

I struggle to understand why a contract that is voluntarily agreed upon by two mentally capable individuals would be deemed invalid, except for perhaps contracts that result in direct physical harm (or are made under threat thereof). Is this to protect individuals from their own bad decisions? — Tzeentch

It’s basically a matter of one’s power to contract (or not) being inalienable. Nobody has the power to agree to agree (or not) to any change of rights or ownership, such as by agreeing not to enter into other contracts (as in non-compete agreements), or agreeing to accept whatever terms the other party later dictates (as in selling oneself into slavery, or as in the "social contract" sometimes held to justify a state's right to rule), or agreeing to grant someone a temporary liberty upon certain conditions ("selling" someone the temporary use of your property, as in contracts of rent or interest; letting someone do something is not itself doing something).

In short, the power to contract must be limited to the simple trade of goods and services, and cannot create second-order obligations between people that place one person in a position of ongoing power over another person.

Maybe you could elaborate a bit further on this, because I don't think I fully understand what you mean. Should everything I have no use for then belong to someone who does have a use for it? — Tzeentch

Both the usual type of socialist and I say yes. The differences between us are in how that comes about. The usual type of socialist says basically that use just is ownership, so something you’re not using just doesn’t belong to you.

I say instead that the legal framework ought to be such that there is no incentive to own things you aren’t using, i.e. there should be no way to profit simply from ownership, leaving the most profit you can get from it as just the proceeds from the sale of it. And since nobody else has motive to buy something they’re not going to use themselves, the market you would have to sell to would only be people who have a use for it. So making absentee ownership not profitable encourages the voluntary transfer of property from those who have more than they need for their own use to those who have less than they need for their own use.

I'm just talking about states here. I'm not including drug cartels, organized crime, or corporations in this count. — BitconnectCarlos

Okay, just the sates and just American deaths by war vs individuals in the 20th century.

Roughly half a million Americans were killed in war during the 20th century.

Say there are only 10k murders per year in the states during the 20th century, that comes to one million and twice the number of those killed in war.

What am I missing?

We need to expand our discussion outside of the US. We're lucky to be living in the US, at least compared to other nations. Other states are not so kind.

Stalin killed around 1 million of his own citizens in the span of a year or two during the purges of the late 30s. There were other purges too. We're talking in the tens of millions killed by both Stalin and Mao and that's only over the course of their regimes - around 25-30 years each. The craziest individual murderers aren't remotely capable of setting up a vast secret police force that can abduct anyone in the middle of the night because they're an acquaintance of a suspected traitor or cut off the food supply to an entire region that they suspect could become disloyal.

"Stalin killed around 1 million of his own citizens in the span of a year or two during the purges of the late 30s. There were other purges too. We're talking in the tens of millions killed by both Stalin and Mao..."

Because this is a very serious humanitarian issue, the question for you is, how were they able to accomplish this?

That's a good question and I can't give a detailed answer because I'm not a historian but there are plenty of good books on it. I think the short answer is that with Stalin at least he'd murder anyone even remotely suspected of disloyalty. He was the state and he completely consolidated power. I wish I knew more about the specifics.