I think it is wrong and unjust to control people, to confiscate the fruits of their labor, or to impose someone’s will upon another’s if they do not deserve it. — NOS4A2
My reasons for preferring it are moral. I think it is wrong and unjust to control people, to confiscate the fruits of their labor, or to impose someone’s will upon another’s if they do not deserve it. — NOS4A2
The same applies to matters of trade and enterprise. If anyone rigged the game in their favor as much as states have done—skimming, stealing, exploiting, extorting, racketeering, money laundering—he’d be thrown in jail. — NOS4A2
No laissez faire regime has failed because no such regime has existed. — NOS4A2
So I’ve read your objections and still prefer the idea of separating the state and economy. — NOS4A2
My reasons for preferring it are moral. I think it is wrong and unjust to control people, to confiscate the fruits of their labor, or to impose someone’s will upon another’s if they do not deserve it. Anything else is tyranny, injustice, oppression, exploitation, slavery. If you or I or any group of people acted as a state official or agent does, they’d be rightfully dragged through the street. — NOS4A2
The same applies to matters of trade and enterprise. If anyone rigged the game in their favor as much as states have done—skimming, stealing, exploiting, extorting, racketeering, money laundering—he’d be thrown in jail. — NOS4A2
Because of this, and because the state increases its own power in proportion to the decrease in the power of the people it rules, it is an anti-social institution worth opposing. — NOS4A2
As for roads and government services, no government is required to flatten earth and lay asphalt. No government is required to tell me which products I should buy, or with which group of people I should engage in common enterprise with. — NOS4A2
So I’ve read your objections and still prefer the idea of separating the state and economy. — NOS4A2
I don’t care for your points or your hypotheticals. — NOS4A2
Nonetheless, despite our disagreement, your examples of why you fear of laissez-faire is all I really wanted to know. So thank you. — NOS4A2
Never heard of Laissez-faire. Any chance of a quick summation? — I like sushi
My theory of the state and state formation is the so-called conquest theory of state formation, as written by Franz Oppenheimer. — NOS4A2
I’ve never understood the criticism of laissez-faire. Economic history, if there is such a thing, has invariably been one of statism and state intervention. Fascism, communism, progressivism, socialism—all demand the regulation of the economy, providing posterity with examples spanning the gamut of oppression and exploitation, ranging from annoying to despotic.
So what’s to fear in the separation of the state and economy?
Poverty, overconsumption, monopoly, wealth inequality, seem to me the common objections. Keynes said as much in his essay “The End of laissez-faire”. But all of the above are apparent in all systems, including in those in which Keynes was the architect: capitalism “wisely managed”.
But why should it be managed at all? Why should one serve the interests of the state instead of his own and his neighbors?
Upon thinking about it, Oscar Wilde was at least honest when he said that “Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others”. This attitude, I believe, represents the inherent egoism beneath the fear of the separation of state and economy. Without a state tending to the ills of the economy we would be required to confront that “sordid necessity” and to cooperate with each other based on our own personal initiative and resources. Instead of passively paying a tax or promoting this or that government service we would need to act and to do so voluntarily in order to affect any change. To “let us do” would be to lay bare our conscience and morality for what it really amounts to.
The state wedded to the economy is by now ubiquitous, and state intervention commonplace. It has absorbed all spontaneous social effort, as Ortega Y Gasset once predicted, leaving us to not fear the social ills, which are still with us every day and in every society, but the absence of the state and what we are to do in its stead. — NOS4A2
There is no economy without government therefor laissez-faire is nonsense. Not a strand of bubble gum can connect the premise to the conclusion. — NOS4A2
Yes. Laissez faire is nonsense because "free markets" don't exist and cannot exist. Period. So the very idea is nonsense. So to is trying to separate "economy from state." — Xtrix
Even with that hypothesis (which I don't ascribe to), you haven't justified your preference for economic liberties over civil liberties. In fact, for most states it describes how the already rich and powerful conquered the masses and keep them down. The system is already working in their favour.
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