It’s essentially the difference between expecting others to respect your ability to make your own way in life and demanding others to provide for your way of life. One involves voluntary association the other demands compulsory association.

The difference between negative and positive rights is pretty well established that anyone can spend a moment to learn the difference and come to his own conclusions.

Yes it is more fundamental and just than demanding others provide for you.

Are you arguing for human rights now? Freedom of association as a human right?

Is that more or less fundamental than the right to life, the right to a living wage, the right to humane working conditions - all of which have, historically speaking, require state intervention?

I'm talking about actual history, not your abstract fantasy.

Always have been. But no, you have no right to demand I provide for you.

That's why we have human rights. To protect everyone. Even stupid cowards. (Not saying you're a stupid coward xtrix :smile: )

Human rights are for the weakest, stupidest, most cowardly among us. Yes, and even the "moochers and looters." Everyone, no matter how unworthy.

That’s right. And freedom of association implies anyone can quit a relationship with the state should they choose.

It's food stamps NOS. Cheese. Milk. Hamburger.
Buns to put the hamburger in. It's not going to turn the world upside down.

It’s unjust, Frank. It’s an unjust system. It seeks to arise at a just state through unjust means. Not only that but it does so inefficiently, wastefully and poorly.

It's just nutrition assistance. Nothing drastic.

All of it at the cost of justice. It cannot differentiate between just and unjust distribution of wealth.

Exactly. It treats adults as unweened.

Only insofar as I think the state should defend human rights, which you just claimed yourself right before you implied it should offer people food and a living.

Moral hazard, NOS. That's the argument you're missing.

I’ll look into it.

Why should the state do any of that?

So they can continue to do nothing about it themselves. It achieves the greatest effect with the least possible exertion, no matter if it is an unjust relationship.

The reason The Wealthy purchase or influence power is because the people with power are selling it. If the state didn’t have that power The Wealthy wouldn’t be able to purchase it. The Wealthy do not have the power you claim they do until the people with power afford it to them, and even then it’s just the promise that the state will use its power to benefit The Wealthy.

The Poor, with no wealth, can only purchase or influence power through less-costly means such as voting or protest.

Both seek to influence power, actual power. Both desire the same ends: to use state power to benefit their preferred group of beneficiaries.

A police officer has the legal right to use force against you. The bureaucrat has the legal right take your children, your home, your wages. They can put you in prison. I don’t think any other class of people has that sort of power in the statist system.

Putin is the leader of a state. Yours is an example of an agent of the state getting away with such activity. But the phrase “the wealthy” also applies to people who are not agents of the state. Elon Musk, for example, doesn’t have the monopoly on violence, and any middle-class cop can toss him in jail should he break a rule.

If the richest man in America and the poorest cop in America were to draw guns and point them at each other, which one could shoot the other and be applauded for doing so?

It’s true, I do not equate the wealthy with the state because there are plenty non-wealthy, middle to low-class people who are agents of it. Similarly, not every wealthy person is an agent of the state.

You keep telling me things are a given but on closer examination we find they are not, and are in fact the opposite of the case. It makes all this condescending language about my thinking and naivety all the more precious.

Sometimes we use examples to give force to arguments. What’s the point of loaded questions?

Do you believe the United States had a laissez-faire system until the 2008 crisis?

I gave you evidence that there is no such thing as a "lack of regulation", and in fact there is a massive accumulation of regulation over time. The causes of the crisis were myriad, but to pin it on a system of laissez-faire when it has occurred in a highly-regulated mixed-economy is a bit out of bounds.

No. There was no regulation of derivatives.

The story is that Greenspan was warned that this pocket of confusion was brewing and he refused to do anything about it based on his belief in the virtues of laissez-faire.

He later admitted to Congress that he was wrong. Laissez-faire is dangerous. It causes catastrophes. That's why we don't do it.

No policy of laissez-faire has existed. The American government has had its hands in the economy since its inception. The second federal law ever passed in the US was a tariff. All economic catastrophes since then have occurred under the supervision and regulation of the US government.

Ok. So the state, just by allowing people to help one another, is actually doing the helping.

Statist morality in a nutshell.

Despite the accumulation of regulation, they failed at their one duty, and then used the public purse to bail out their friends.

The main problem is that it tends to fail. 2008 is an example. A lack of regulation leads to the explosion of a speculative bubble and everyone suffers.

No policy of laissez-faire has existed in the United States. As far as I can tell, Federal regulations have only increased. (https://www.quantgov.org/regulatory-accumulation)




https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/reg-stats

Your complaints about corporate structure and governance do not mean shit to this conversation, and is little more than a red herring. Further, your false equivalency between the two is bonkers, in my opinion. I’ve entertained it because I appreciate your input, as snide and hilarious as it might be. We can leave it at that, take it up in a different thread, or discuss the merits and demerits of laissez-faire.

I was only confirming to my interlocutor that it is true I can leave the country if I do not like it.



What you claim I said:

“In terms of employment, it’s nice to know you stick with the age-old “just quit and work somewhere else” mantra”

What I said:

“ 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.”

One is a fallacy, the other is a description of my own behavior.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

Where would we be with out your passive aggression?

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.

X needs doing, there are no alternatives. That's a justification for X.

I just want to know the justification for why taxes need doing. I was arguing that they don’t need doing, that they are immoral, that there are voluntary alternatives such as community organization.

I did address them. You just ignored it. Your list makes emigration harder than moving job. If I find emigration easier than moving job, is my boss immoral for changing my contract unfavorably?

Or, put another way, if states made emigration easier, would they be off the hook?

If you found emigration easier than changing jobs I’d say you were insane, for one.

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. Yes, if one doesn’t like one state he should move to another.

But that’s an oversimplification because one isn’t compelled, by threat of force, to deal with anyone in the private sphere, corporate or otherwise, save for perhaps in criminal endeavors like robbery. He can liberate himself from the jurisdiction of his overlords and work as he sees fit. He can become a boss himself, start a collective, and so on. All of it, of course, under the beck and call of the state.

In a state you are compelled, by threat of force, to deal with it, just like with any criminal enterprise. The immigrant and refugee cannot liberate himself from its power and oversight no matter where he goes. Even those deemed stateless have been subjected to some of the worst state privations from states.

The relationship, the risks, the effort, the power imbalance, the scope, the coercion, the effect—none of it is equivalent between the two.

I am. X needs doing, there are no alternatives. That's a justification for X.

Taxes need doing. That’s a justification for taxes. Doesn’t compute.

So you'd rule against inheritance then, which is neither "one’s own labor" nor "the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others". That's a good start, but it doesn't differentiate Queen Elizabeth from most factory owners.

I would not rule against inheritance, and never implied any such thing.

A monarch is the head of state, a factory owner is a subject of the state.

Just saying it's a false equivalency doesn't make it one by magic. It's harder. That's all you've given me so far. If I find emigration easy but moving jobs hard does that make my employer immoral for changing my contract to terms I don't like?

I’ve given reasons why they are not equivalent, all of which were not addressed. You haven’t given reasons why the are equivalent. Moving to another country is not equivalent to moving to another job.

OK. How else?

I thought you were going to justify taxation.

You're just using 'legitimate' here to mean 'means I agree with'. On what grounds are the means by which factory owner come by their factories 'legitimate' which then excludes the means by which, say, Queen Elizabeth came by England?

This is turning into an interview. I feared as much.

There are two means by which man can satisfy his needs, through one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, or through robbery and confiscation. The private citizen, whether factory owner or factory worker, engages in the former, the state engages in the latter.

You've not answered why the state should care how difficult you find it to emigrate. If you don't like the rules, move. If you find moving onerous, how exactly is that my problem, or the state's problem, or anyone's problem but yours?

If I personally find emigration a breeze, but am terrified of job interviews, do I get to claim corporations are immoral for making move jobs every time they change my employment terms?

You’re comparing immigration to finding a new job. It’s a false equivalency. And that’s to say nothing about states where emigration is or was illegal.

Enjoy your thraldom.

You may be right. I've called him a monster above, and I stand by that. What you see as my charity aligns neatly with Nietzche's caveat:

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...”

Cringeworthy. You lot have resorted to fashioning fantasies in your head. But I love reading you guys seethe about it.

I gave it in the quote - there's a need to manage common resources, experience has shown that in our current hierarchical society people do not do so voluntarily. You agreed with both of those principles. Hence it follows there's a need to manage common resources without relying on spontaneous voluntary action.

It doesn’t follow for me that a compulsory tax or compulsory cooperation is required to manage common resources.

Neither do I, I'm following your logic. If no-one can own a country then I shouldn't have to pay for any property, right? Since no-one can own it? Why do you think no-one can own a country, but people can own a factory?

By and large people come to own a factory by legitimate means, states do not acquire a territory by legitimate means. Factories deal with their employees through legitimate means, utilizing contract and voluntary cooperation, states do not, and utilize force and compulsory cooperation.

No it doesn't you're completely free to leave. They're not using any threat or force to compel you to stay. Of course, if you do stay, then you're agreeing to their rules, one of which is that they can throw you in jail if you break any of the rules. If you don't like that rule, move.

I feel I shouldn’t need to compare immigration to changing jobs, but this is quality of argument we’ve resorted to.

I don’t require a passport to leave a job and find another. I don’t need to pass through a border and have my motives questioned if I leave a job and find another. I do not need to sell my property and sever ties with the people I know to change jobs. I do not need to become an immigrant and go through any immigration process to change jobs. I do not need to learn new languages, customs, laws, just to fit in a new job. I do not face deportation if I find a new job. The comparison is so outlandish as to be false.

I’m not sure I’ve seen your justification for taxation in this thread, or I have forgotten. If you wouldn’t mind reiterating it or linking to it I can provide a response.

I don’t think you made any deal with Harold Wilson, but such a thought brings new meaning to the phrase “cradle-to-grave”.

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. The opposite is true when I sign employment agreements. One dictates my behavior by threat and force, the other by agreement. Do you think both are similar?

I have never negotiated a public utility bill because I am not allowed to. I am unable to negotiate or find a competitor because the state has a monopoly on such utilities.

I don’t think a government should make it easier for me, and never expressed anything like that. I have only said the relationship is immoral, employs compulsory cooperation rather than voluntary cooperation.

I'm not excusing it. I've just given a perfectly clear argument justifying it using foundational principles you and I have just agreed on. We agreed on the need to manage common resources and we agreed that the current crop of humanity (for whatever reason) cannot be trusted to manage those resources voluntarily.

If you want to go back and dispute one of those points then do so.

You didn’t justify taxation.

It's not passive. As ↪Xtrix has pointed out. Just as you can change corporations if you don't like their service, you can change countries if you don't like their deal. The government of the country are the legal owners of the legal entity and they offer a deal to anyone born into (or moving into) their country. If you don't like the deal, move out of their country.

Deal? With which official did you make a deal with on the date of your birth?

I have changed services, changed corporations, and changed countries. One was significantly more difficult and life-altering, taking years to become official and involving much effort and zero negotiation. There was no deal. It was as if running from one plantation to the next. The rest were easy.

You are wrong because I’ve criticized the ethics of state intervention, questioning how passively paying a tax or promoting this or that government service could be considered ethical. Delegating ethical conduct to others is not itself ethical conduct. It’s self-serving conduct.

I said poverty, wealth inequality, overconsumption, and so on, is apparent in all present systems. And I suggested that state interventions only serve to provide mechanisms by which the statist gets to relieve himself from the sordid necessity of living for others, as Oscar Wilde admitted. From this I reason that an interventionist might fear laissez-faire because it would expose his conscience and morality for what it really amounts to.

Laissez-Faire does not entail leaving things to their own course or ignoring anything. It is a fairly simple notion that unlike mercantilism, fascism, communism, modern liberalism, the state should probably mind its own business.

Your reasoning and snark have not convinced me that workers should “get a say” in a venture that is not theirs, nor that this relationship is anything like a state and subject, which has the monopoly on violence, systems of taxation, and armed control and jurisdiction.

If I want to risk starting a business, funding it, operating it, I should not have to give you a say just because I hired you to pour lattes. If you want to negotiate the terms of your employment you’ll just have to put on your big boy pants and learn to negotiate.

Corporations are not governments, though. If a group of people start a corporation it makes no sense to me that others, by virtue of them accepting a job there, should have control over it. It makes no sense to me that the people who conceive of, fund, build, accept the risk, and who are responsible for its operation from its conception until its demise should not get to decide how it should operate. You haven’t offered a single reason why this should be so.

I would say “just quit” because it is a far better course of action than attempting to force others to give up control of their creations so that Xtrix might feel better.

Perhaps my ignorance is a result of my experience and tastes. 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. If I wanted a raise or some privilege I’d much rather retain a space of negotiation than to let some majority decide how I ought to associate with others,

I just don’t see where the tyranny is.