I was arguing that they don’t need doing, that they are immoral, that there are voluntary alternatives such as community organization. — NOS4A2

It is absolutely clear that people will not volunteer to deal with common resources, the idea is utterly ludicrous. There are homeless people in every city, people dying from poverty in every country, pollution and habitat destruction on an apocalyptic scale... All of which people are perfectly free to voluntarily solve and yet they do not.

If some pie in the sky Utopian fantasy of a global love-in is all you've got...

You think finding emigration easier than moving jobs is insane, but apparently the idea that Jeff Bezos will, overnight, for no reason at all, decide to spend his money alleviating the plight of the starving in Africa, is sane?

one isn’t compelled, by threat of force, to deal with anyone in the private sphere — NOS4A2

Nor are you compelled by force to deal with anyone from your government. You are free to leave at any time. We've been through this. What threat of force prevents you from leaving your country?

It’s not as ludicrous as you make it out to be, I'm afraid. People help the homeless everyday. People organize to protect the environment. Volunteers, churches, philanthropists, charities, still operate despite your panacea. They have to because delegating these duties to a state only minimizes this activity by taking the responsibility out of their hands and placing it in another's. Paying a tax is tantamount to doing nothing to resolve those issues.

Nor are you compelled by force to deal with anyone from your government. You are free to leave at any time. We've been through this. What threat of force prevents you from leaving your country?

I'm still unsure what any of this has to do with anything. "If you don't like it, just leave" is a fallacy. Why do you keep evoking it, and why should I answer these questions?

Nonetheless, the risk of leaving a country, his home, his family, his support networks, is more than enough to convince one to remain in his country.

If some pie in the sky Utopian fantasy of a global love-in is all you've got... — Isaac

It's clear it's all he's got. His pie-in-the-sky over-abstractification is tantamount to dehumanization. Strange twist, that.

"People help the homeless every day."
"...is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound [ ]
Signifying nothing."

In case you guys didn't realize, NOS just keeps repeating the same thing again and again. He's not interested in a real discussion or a conversation. You will not change his mind, because that's not what he's here for. And that's perfectly fine. Just don't waste your time sticking around after you say your piece.

That's good advice. :smile:

Where would we be with out your passive aggression?

I don’t think anyone can own a country and I have given no group of people or any institution the right to dictate how I conduct myself. — NOS4A2

And I don’t think anyone can own electricity…or a building…or a corporation. So I guess it evens out.

I give corporations no right to dictate how I conduct myself. I don’t have to deal with them just as you don’t have to live in a state. Difficult to move? Terrible choice? Tough shit— it’s difficult to avoid corporations too.

These fucking libertarians are totally, 100% OK with corporate tyranny that rules over when you can literally go to the bathroom between 9am and 5pm but will get mad about having to pay taxes. — Streetlight

Why don’t you just admit that this is an accurate description, NOS? At least be honest. Put down the laissez faire and liberty bullshit. If you have no interest in democracy or liberty at work, you have no interest in democracy or liberty.

Why don’t you just admit that this is an accurate description, NOS? At least be honest. Put down the laissez faire and liberty bullshit. If you have no interest in democracy or liberty at work, you have no interest in democracy it liberty. — Xtrix

It's why libertarianism is essentially the ideology of bosses. Working people are well familiar with the everyday tyrannies of the workplace, from Amazon employees who pee in bottles or sick workers held hostage by employer issued insurance. Bosses, who are not labor, only ever feel their own freedom limited by the state in the form of regulation and taxes, and then take this as the model of opression that should be generalized to all of society. It reflects nothing other than an inability to excercize unlimited tyranny, which they will cry about because they can't willy nilly force labour to scramble for whatever scraps they deem worthy at throwing downwards.

One can be both ignorant and horrible simultaneously.

states ... utilize force and compulsory cooperation.
— NOS4A2

They do not. You are free to leave. — Isaac

Right. Plus laws are made by congress, who are elected by the public. You’re welcome to organize more voters or run for office yourself and change those laws. Or you can just leave.

Leaving a country is harder than quitting a job…yeah, most of the time. But not always. In any case— tough shit.

Your ranting about states would be perfectly fine were it not for the fact that you refuse to condemn illegitimate private power.

If abuse is private, it’s fine — if it’s done by democratically elected officials, it’s evil.

You’re just an inconsistent hypocrite. That’s why you’re so nauseating.

"If you don't like it, just leave" is a fallacy. — NOS4A2

Indeed.

Yet it’s fine for you to use regarding jobs. Not only is it fallacious, it’s simpleminded.

Glad you finally see that.

…

It’s a neat trick. Capitalists are absolutely in favor of big government. They hate only the aspects you mention. Yet they rally the angry NOSes of the world against the evil state. Anything happens, blame the state.

Have to admire its effectiveness. Gets the attention off of them, and promotes “small government” in all the ways that are beneficial to their interests — like deregulation and tax cuts. While still taking their $800 billion a year in defense contracts and billions in bailouts, of course.

Libertarianism: liberty for private capital, tyranny for workers.

I think interacting with others is its own form of tyranny.. There will always be fights, hatreds, dislikes, distastes, value differences, no matter who is on top of the hierarchy.

The problem with most economic talk and liberation (whether Libertarian or Communist), is that it doesn't get at the root of the problem. It sets up a proxy and then thinks this is going to fix it.

As a counselor-psychotherapist in training, I'm glad NOS4A2 is around. It's a rare opportunity to probe the mind of a monster. Vampires - anti-logical compassionless bloodsuckers - we have a lot to learn from them - about ourselves, about mental illness and about the powers that be.

The same reason I spent time in dialogue with Garret Travers during his brief tenure here. Randians are fascinating case studies.

It’s not as ludicrous as you make it out to be, I'm afraid. People help the homeless everyday. People organize to protect the environment. Volunteers, churches, philanthropists, charities, still operate despite your panacea. — NOS4A2

Then why have those problems not been solved? There's enough money in the hands of the wealthy to house, feed and clothe everyone. There's sufficient available solutions to the environmental crisis for it to be, at least, patched up. The government is neither preventing, nor even discouraging people from acting. Jeff Bezos could feed most of Africa tomorrow if he so wished. The fact is that charitable efforts are currently below what is required. It's therefore ludicrous to argue that such efforts would be adequate to deal with state-funded management tasks too.

I'm still unsure what any of this has to do with anything. "If you don't like it, just leave" is a fallacy. Why do you keep evoking it, and why should I answer these questions? — NOS4A2

It's your argument, not mine.

"Employment does not need regulating because if you don't like it you can just leave" - your argument, not mine.
"Corporations are not tyrannical because of you don't like their deal, you can just find another" - your argument, not mine
So
"Governments are not forcing anything on anyone because if you don't like it, you can just leave" - exactly the same argument.

the risk of leaving a country, his home, his family, his support networks, is more than enough to convince one to remain in his country. — NOS4A2

Again, why is the risk and difficulty anyone else's problem? Your argument is that the government are forcing you, with threat of violence, to comply. They're not because you can leave. Your argument is simply wrong on the same grounds you want to use to argue corporations are not forcing anyone to comply. Either both are using a kind of force (the difficulty of finding an alternative), or neither are.

If you want to start using the difficulty of the alternative as an argument, then fine, but that then draws most corporations in too. If I, for example, wanted to use alternatives to Black Rock- or Vanguard- owned companies, where would I turn for my insurance, or my banking? If I want an employer who'll give me a three day working week and twice the minimum wage, where do I look?

The corollary of your absurd 'freedom' of employment choice is that people actually freely chose to work in warehouses requiring a a 700 package an hour throughput rate, a 60% risk of serious injury per year's work and of which one former employee said “I would rather go back to a state correctional facility and work for 18 cents an hour than do that job,”

Does that, in any way at all, sound like a job someone chose of their own free, un-forced, will to take?

Are these children doing a job they chose, of their own free will, to do?

NOS just keeps repeating the same thing again and again. He's not interested in a real discussion or a conversation. You will not change his mind, because that's not what he's here for. And that's perfectly fine. Just don't waste your time sticking around after you say your piece. — Philosophim

Most everyone just repeats the same thing again and again, and you barely ever change anyone's mind by rational argument. NOS is no different there. People simply don't arrive at positions by some kind of logical process and they certainly don't change them by it.

Take a glance through the political threads (even most of the non-political ones) do you see a flurry of mind-changing going on? Think of the regular contributors here. Is anyone going to offer long odds on what they'll have to say on any given topic?

Defiance is an act of solidarity, not a mathematical proof.

Defiance is an act of solidarity — Isaac

:fire: :heart: :fire:

Then why have those problems not been solved? There's enough money in the hands of the wealthy to house, feed and clothe everyone. There's sufficient available solutions to the environmental crisis for it to be, at least, patched up. The government is neither preventing, nor even discouraging people from acting. Jeff Bezos could feed most of Africa tomorrow if he so wished. The fact is that charitable efforts are currently below what is required. It's therefore ludicrous to argue that such efforts would be adequate to deal with state-funded management tasks too.

I don’t know the answer. Much of it is probably ineradicable. It’s comforting to know good people and good organizations are doing the best they can.

What presently concerns me is the injustice and imbalance in power in the relationship between the man and the state, and the effect it has on our livelihoods.

It's your argument, not mine.

"Employment does not need regulating because if you don't like it you can just leave" - your argument, not mine.
"Corporations are not tyrannical because of you don't like their deal, you can just find another" - your argument, not mine
So
"Governments are not forcing anything on anyone because if you don't like it, you can just leave" - exactly the same argument.

I never made such arguments, though. You’re pretending I did. The closest I came is saying that if I don’t like a product or service I don’t buy it, which is a statement of fact and a description of my own behavior. Instead you took someone else’s mischaracterization and wasted a lot of time on it.

Again, why is the risk and difficulty anyone else's problem? Your argument is that the government are forcing you, with threat of violence, to comply. They're not because you can leave. Your argument is simply wrong on the same grounds you want to use to argue corporations are not forcing anyone to comply. Either both are using a kind of force (the difficulty of finding an alternative), or neither are.

I differentiated the state from the corporation with the monopoly on violence. States actively seek, require, and/or hold that monopoly. Corporations do not (though state corporations such as The Crown Corporation do). It is the monopoly on violence that entails compulsory cooperation. If and when corporations possess this monopoly I’ll oppose it, but until then I can deal with them or not without the looming threat of that monopoly being set against me. When I purchase a product or service from a business I do so voluntarily. When I purchase a product or service from the government I do so involuntarily. I use wealth to purchase services and products from business. The State takes my wealth to purchase its services and products.

Is there no such difference in your mind?

Indeed.

Yet it’s fine for you to use regarding jobs. Not only is it fallacious, it’s simpleminded.

Glad you finally see that.

You lied and pretended I said it.

It’s comforting to know good people and good organizations are doing the best they can. — NOS4A2

A lot of these good people work directly for the state using the tax dollars you would refuse them if you could. So your statement is pure hypocrisy.

Much of it is probably ineradicable. — NOS4A2

Quite the social visionary.

This is the self-soothing slogan of the apathetic.

Then why have those problems not been solved? There's enough money in the hands of the wealthy to house, feed and clothe everyone. There's sufficient available solutions to the environmental crisis for it to be, at least, patched up. The government is neither preventing, nor even discouraging people from acting. Jeff Bezos could feed most of Africa tomorrow if he so wished. The fact is that charitable efforts are currently below what is required. It's therefore ludicrous to argue that such efforts would be adequate to deal with state-funded management tasks too. — Isaac

Let alone that back in the day we had a lot less government, we had no poverty whatsoever. Right?

Yes, I get it, a boss may act immorally towards an employee just like a state can act immorally towards a citizen. Yes, one has the option of quitting a state just as one has the option to quit a job. People do both all the time, for economic and moral reasons, at least when they are not fleeing because they fear for their lives. — Nos

How should we interpret that other than "you can quit your job"?

I don’t know the answer. — NOS4A2

So you're advocating demolishing the state on a hunch that everything will be just fine?

I never made such arguments, though. You’re pretending I did. The closest I came is saying that if I don’t like a product or service I don’t buy it, which is a statement of fact and a description of my own behavior. Instead you took someone else’s mischaracterization and wasted a lot of time on it. — NOS4A2

It's your entire argument because without it, this...

I differentiated the state from the corporation with the monopoly on violence. — NOS4A2

...makes no sense.

When I purchase a product or service from a business I do so voluntarily. When I purchase a product or service from the government I do so involuntarily. — NOS4A2

You do not. We've been through this. No one is making you accept any services from the government. Just move country. I asked you (but you've so far refused to answer), what threat of force prevents you from avoiding taxes by simply moving out of the country in which they are the rule.

It's no different to employment. If you don't like the terms of your employment, leave. If you don't like the terms of your using a country's resources (air, land, water), then leave. If you don't agree that such ultimatums are fair (and I'd be with you there), then no such ultimatums are fair - including those of the corporation.

There is no difference between the rules a corporation sets for your employment and the rules a country sets for your use of their services. Both are mandatory whilst you use their service, both can be freely left of you don't like the terms.

Is there no such difference in your mind? — NOS4A2

Of course not. To think so would be absurd. Why would I even have a job, or pay for a service with no threat of violence. I'd just take the stuff I wanted (to the extent that I thought it rightfully mine). Corporations rely entirely on the threat of violence to enforce working conditions that no-one absent of such a threat would agree to. As such, the threat of violence (and the monopoly on it) is absolutely integral to the functioning of the corporation. All the while they can control the state, they control the monopoly on violence (by proxy). Take away the state and they'll have to obtain the monopoly on violence some other way. They need the monopoly on violence because without it they cannot set a price on products that people could otherwise just freely take from them.

Let alone that back in the day we had a lot less government, we had no poverty whatsoever. Right? — Benkei

Ahh, the good old days of the church-run workhouse. Happier times!

So you're advocating demolishing the state on a hunch that everything will be just fine?

I told you directly that to destroy or walk away from the state would be cruel. So no, that is not what I'm advocating. What I have argued is that what we fear in laissez-faire is not poverty, wealth inequality, or ecological destruction as such—these are present in all systems—but what we are to do in the absence of state authority. I do not fear this because I believe in the capacity of human cooperation; if the state was to collapse tomorrow I wouldn't start stealing from my neighbors simply because there was no law against it.

You do not. We've been through this. No one is making you accept any services from the government. Just move country. I asked you (but you've so far refused to answer), what threat of force prevents you from avoiding taxes by simply moving out of the country in which they are the rule.

It's no different to employment. If you don't like the terms of your employment, leave. If you don't like the terms of your using a country's resources (air, land, water), then leave. If you don't agree that such ultimatums are fair (and I'd be with you there), then no such ultimatums are fair - including those of the corporation.

There is no difference between the rules a corporation sets for your employment and the rules a country sets for your use of their services. Both are mandatory whilst you use their service, both can be freely left of you don't like the terms.

When I buy a loaf of bread, the government skims 7% of that transaction, with neither mine nor the seller's consent. A certain amount is taken from my income without mine or my employer's consent. The government steals a portion of my capital when I sell my home, taxes my home just for living in it, or extorts its share from an inheritance. All of us must obey because it is illegal to do otherwise. That money funds everything from state propaganda to state monopoly to the politician's wardrobe to wars to vaccination programs, all without my consent.

I can do as you suggest and not buy food, not work, become homeless, move to another country, because no one is forcing me to consume food or live with a roof over my head, but knowing that all of this is being used to avoid the points of my criticisms leaves me with little choice but to ignore it.

Of course not. To think so would be absurd. Why would I even have a job, or pay for a service with no threat of violence. I'd just take the stuff I wanted (to the extent that I thought it rightfully mine). Corporations rely entirely on the threat of violence to enforce working conditions that no-one absent of such a threat would agree to. As such, the threat of violence (and the monopoly on it) is absolutely integral to the functioning of the corporation. All the while they can control the state, they control the monopoly on violence (by proxy). Take away the state and they'll have to obtain the monopoly on violence some other way. They need the monopoly on violence because without it they cannot set a price on products that people could otherwise just freely take from them.

The human capacity for cooperation, I believe, serves us all better then than his capacity for evil and greed. Perhaps you'd learn to provide for yourself and pay for services rendered because it is the right thing to do. But despite my anarchist leanings, it is this sort of attitude and the inability of some people to govern their own behavior that I haven't taken the full plunge.

How should we interpret that other than "you can quit your job"?

You can start by reading the rest of what I wrote.

What I have argued is that what we fear in laissez-faire is not poverty, wealth inequality, or ecological destruction as such—these are present in all systems—but what we are to do in the absence of state authority. — NOS4A2

I see. Well then you are wrong (insofar as I am such person who fears laissez-faire). I fear what other people would do. People like you, who seem to think more of their wealth than they do the welfare of others. As I said before, we haven't come to this point with a blank slate.

All of us must obey because it is illegal to do otherwise. — NOS4A2

Again, this is simply not true. You need not obey. You can move. You only need obey if you choose to remain in that country. Just as if you choose to agree to a contact of sale you must obey the payment terms (under pain of exactly the same threat of violence).

That money funds everything from state propaganda to state monopoly to the politician's wardrobe to wars to vaccination programs, all without my consent. — NOS4A2

The profit you provide to a corporation for goods is spent on whatever the corporation wants to spend it on, also without your consent. Why a different rule for them?

I can do as you suggest and not buy food, not work, become homeless, move to another country, because no one is forcing me to consume food or live with a roof over my head, but knowing that all of this is being used to avoid the points of my criticisms leaves me with little choice but to ignore it. — NOS4A2

It's addressing your points directly. Your points try to distinguish corporations from governments on the basis of freedom to choose. You are simply wrong about the difference. You are no more or less free to choose the rules of your government than you are the rules of your employment. Both can be left, both are difficult to find a genuine alternative, both monopolize authority to reduce competition, both engineer circumstances to reduce choice compelling you to accept pecuniary terms. There's no difference.

The human capacity for cooperation, I believe, serves us all better then than his capacity for evil and greed. — NOS4A2

This has absolutely nothing to do with the difference between government and corporation. Both can exhibit greed or cooperation. Neither are more or less likely than the other. Raytheon is responsible for no less death and destruction than the US government. The largest genocide ever was perpetrated by British American Tobacco. Governments are leading us to war, fossil fuel corporations are leading us to a global climate catastrophe.

This difference you're trying to paint in is fantasy.

I did and that's what I understood it to mean, so if you mean something else, I'm asking you to explain it.

You lied and pretended I said it. — NOS4A2

You did say it.

I have had no relationship with a corporation that was not voluntary and premised on mutual agreement. If I were to come across arraignments that were not to my liking, I’d not sign any contract. If I don’t like their product or service I don’t buy it. — NOS4A2

#1. Your relationship with the state is also voluntary. You can leave. Isaac has now pointed that out repeatedly. The onerousness of leaving can be discussed, but I'll remind you that leaving a job is also not always so easy -- nor is simply "not signing any contract" (mostly there is no contract, and jobs are at-will) -- which you would know if you read anything mildly contradictory of "state=bad."

#2. The state does not have a monopoly on violence either, really. That's another bullshit slogan.

#3. The state does not exclusively exploit the "fruits of one's labor" either. Corporations do so all day every day. But that's okay because it's "voluntary" (see #1).

Whatever readings your political outlook is based on -- who knows. But try new material, because it's feeble.

Corporations rely entirely on the threat of violence to enforce working conditions that no-one absent of such a threat would agree to. As such, the threat of violence (and the monopoly on it) is absolutely integral to the functioning of the corporation. — Isaac

:100:

When I buy a loaf of bread, the government skims 7% of that transaction, with neither mine nor the seller's consent. — NOS4A2

When a corporation expands their profit margins by charging 4X the cost of producing a loaf of bread, instead of 3X or 2X, etc., I never consented to that. When a corporation pays me $35,000 a year (for producing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of output) while paying the CEO that amount in a day, I never consented.

If it's "voluntary" simply by being at the corporation, then it's voluntary simply by choosing to continue to live in a state with a certain tax rate. Don't like it? Move. Your choice. All "voluntary."

In fact, you have much more say in what the state does than what a corporation does.

That money funds everything from state propaganda to state monopoly to the politician's wardrobe to wars to vaccination programs, all without my consent. — NOS4A2

90% of the profits I help generate are distributed to shareholders; to CEO bonuses, to exaggerated advertising, campaign contributions, and lobbying. I consented to none of this, and had no say in it.

At least in a state like the US you have a vote. Not so at Exxon and Google.