"Freedom" thread or something

Epignosis wrote: Things are more expensive in the big cities because we have roads and telephones in the country?

Gerinski wrote: You prefer to live in a place where you take care of your own and your neighbour takes care of his. That's fine, but maybe one day you will be having a beer at the bar and will discuss that maybe you should better join efforts and build together that small channel that can bring water to both your properties at once? This is how things started, and this is where they led...

No, I love those kind of arrangements. Those things are great, and lead to progress. Mine is not an "every man for himself" philosophy. If people want to get together and cooperate and help each other and make deals for mutual benefit, I wholeheartedly support that. What I have a problem with is when those two guys at the bar decide to join efforts and build a canal, but then demand that Joe, who doesn't live on the property and won't benefit from it, cough up money or else.

I am happy for you to make a deal with the big city folks to help you if your house catches on fire. I am not happy for you to tell the big city folks "you will help me if my house catches on fire, even though I've chosen to live far away from you and your services, or else!" That's not a deal. That's extortion.

I think a big problem with our current society is that you can now get help from the government regardless of the kind of life you lead or the kind of person you are. It used to be that, if you got in trouble, you would rely on family and friends and church to help you. You could be greedy, selfish, lazy and immoral if you wanted to, but then don't come crying to the people you screwed over to help you when you're down. You had to be decent to people as a sort of insurance policy. Now there is no need for that, because the government doesn't care if you are decent to people, they just hand out checks.

The T wrote: I also understand the mental divide between Europeans (and South Americans) and Americans. You DON't have to be rich to become a politician (even a president) in most of these places, but you HAVE TO BE RICH to become one in the US. That's sad and I don't know what lead the country's system to turn out like this. There's a cumtural divide that will probably never allowthe spread of libertarianism outside of the Us (and the limited European cells like Austria or some in the Uk). Politics are not only a rich man's game outside of the Us.

Gerinski wrote: Nowadays it looks different because big fortunes and corporations have been created which can undertake huge projects privately, but before the 20th century it would have been impossible to progress much without governments. Who would have had the money to build ports, roads, dams, armies, universities, telegraph roads, train networks, airports etc etc if not governments through taxes?

You know we had all but one of those things before the 20th century and private examples of all of them? You also know that somebody like John D. Rockefeller amassed his private fortune before the 20th century?

Gerinski wrote: Sounds like you want to turn the clock back a few hundred years. I don't like much of modern society either, but as I said I'm afraid that it simply went the natural road, you start by building a water channel with your neighbor and as years go by your small community makes an agreement with the neighboring village to build a bigger one together, and year later with the town further away and so on. Things grow and you can not build a dam on top of the mountain 1,000 miles away by yourselves, so you agree to found a common society that will take care of the enterprise for all together, you will agree that each village puts some money for it, and that the most efficient way is to do it all, because that grumpy guy who says he does not want running water will not pay but later on will find the way to profit from our running water anyway. And so on and so on, if we rewind history and try again, most likely it will lead to pretty much the same. Again I can not guarantee, but it's my bet, and I think it's better to work on improving what we have built than experimenting with something as critical as is our society.

Yeah, co operation is fundamental to human existence.  It is easy forget now, pampered as we are by modern amenities, that we derive strength in numbers.  And some amount of 'forcing the issue in the name of the greater good of all' is inevitable in collective action.  The problem is that govts have frequently hijacked their powers to serve their own good at the expense of the voters which leads to disillusionment with the concept of govt. But I am not convinced either that an every man for himself approach is going to solve the problem.  I don't support too many financial crutches for people and believe they need to earn their privileges to a large extent but in today's world, it is highly improbable that I can arrange for everything I need all by myself.  I do have to depend on some or the other form of public service and what is that if not govt.  And if every service had to be instead arranged for only on the basis of economic demand, disaster management would probably get, well, disastrous.  You can't build the fire engine after the fire has struck; it is necessary to maintain such services at taxpayer expense even if they are only infrequently pressed into action.  But I do believe the income redistribution function of tax should either be dispensed with or reduced and tax should be embedded into goods or services so that more burden is shifted on to the actual user. 


Edited by rogerthat - June 18 2013 at 11:20

thellama73 wrote:   Did you ever wonder why we have so many wealthy people in the US and why Spain is not doing very well right now? It is because of our more liberal history that allowed great wealth to be created. (I hope you will not interpret this as me putting Spain down. I have great respect for all the nations and people of Europe, even if I disagree with their policies.)

There is no such thing as a society. Society is an artificial concept that prevents us from thinking clearly. There are only people. All decisions are made by people, not societies, not governments, but individuals.

When people say something is for the good of "society" what do they mean? They mean it is good for some people, but by using the word society they avoid having to identify who those people are.It is much easier to understand what we are talking about if we talk about people rather than societies.

thellama73 wrote: There is no such thing as a society. Society is an artificial concept that prevents us from thinking clearly. There are only people. All decisions are made by people, not societies, not governments, but individuals. When people say something is for the good of "society" what do they mean? They mean it is good for some people, but by using the word society they avoid having to identify who those people are.It is much easier to understand what we are talking about if we talk about people rather than societies.

Society is not an actual thing but neither is the market, yet both are valid concepts in their own way. Recognizing we somewhat form a society doesn't imply we favor its interests over those of the individual. But I think it helps further the cause of libertarianism if we can accept the existence of society. Libertarianism will not move forward and impact more people when those who are starting to discuss it face exclamations about the non-existence of society, which in turns scares many people away as an anti-social remark.

The T wrote: Society is not an actual thing but neither is the market, yet both are valid concepts in their own way. Recognizing we somewhat form a society doesn't imply we favor its interests over those of the individual. But I think it helps further the cause of libertarianism if we can accept the existence of society. Libertarianism will not move forward and impact more people when those who are starting to discuss it face exclamations about the non-existence of society, which in turns scares many people away as an anti-social remark.

You make a fair point, but I think it's important to distinguish that individuals are ultimately responsible for all decisions and the receipt of all benefits. Otherwise we get trapped into wishy-washy discussions of the way a society should behave and what is good for society that prevent clear thinking.

It is easy to say "we need taxes for the good of society" and have people nod their heads and think that makes sense. When you actually ask people to identify the individuals who are helped and harmed by these policies, a much more objective and analysis can take place and we can decide whether it is worth it using quantifiables, not non-specific entities.

The humanization angle is what made me see that libertarianism was the right path. When I stopped thinking in terms of general laws to accomplish goals that are good for society, and started thinking about the impact of those laws on one person who chose to disobey them, I came to see the injustice in way that was always formerly obscured by overly general language.