Libertarianism. Again.

[14th Dragon]

14D,

As you said potential for corruption is not solely a feature of government power. It's a feature of all power, in my opinion.

I would agree on the potential.

Which, IMHO, that power, in general, is not something that needs to be reduced, just balanced.

[Ser Vlad]

You neuter the political process. What advantage could this ev0l rich person gain from pumping money into the political process?

What power would the political process have to interfere with the hypothetical rich person if it is neutered?

The government has a monopoly on legitimate force, and that makes the government very valuable to everyone. Controlling it is advantageous. If you remove that power from the government, it becomes much less valuable. But then it becomes much less capable in enforcing any kind of structure.

The issue, as I see it, is that the government can simulatenously be useless to the powerful and useful to the weak, because it is the same institutions that do both.

[Galactus]

I don't see how universal armed service reasonable fits in it at all. And given that "quite an invasive level" is pretty vague, I can't agree or disagree with that statement.

Basically, in order for the state to be able to keep the legal monopoly of violence it needs some mechanism for actually doing that.

Usually that's a standing police force and army, simply because most people don't WANT to do law enforcement. So the only alternative to a salaried law-enforcement/defence force is some kind of universal service requirement.

[DanteGabriel]

Is it? Has every expansion of governmental power led to abuse in favor of the wealthy?

No, you used to be able to count on Democrats to expand government power in favor of the not-wealthy. The creation of Social Security, for one. Now the Democrats are just as much the errand runners of the wealthy.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

No, you used to be able to count on Democrats to expand government power in favor of the not-wealthy. The creation of Social Security, for one. Now the Democrats are just as much the errand runners of the wealthy.

Social Security was still a give away to wealthy corporations. They don't have to offer pension plans to attract employees any more, and FICA taxes cut off at $106K

[The Progressive]

I'm with tormund here; we should raise the cap on FICA contribution!

As pension and their demise, that has more to do with the declining power of unions and union membership than the introduction of Social Security.

[Falagar]

Well, the group that is permitted to have the weapons and use the force is elected by voters. Those voters are not identical to the people who have the wealth. I'm not understanding why that isn't self-evident.

Voters are also workers. Remove "government intervention", and the voters are left entirely at the mercy of their paymasters. Which might just affect how they vote.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Falagar,

Unless "the workers" are their own paymasters because they run small businesses. Which, if the protection of limited liability is removed, there is more incentive to become.

[sologdin]

Libertarian philosophy is good at defining the Step A (getting rid of most government regulation) and Step Z (Utopia), but never describes quite how a society actually gets from A to Z.

this is why i like libertarians, even while disagreeing with them on most issues related to economic policy--commies tend to adopt a similar attitude: step A is total regulation by the state, and step Z is workers' paradise. i'd like to think that steps B through Y call for the progressive education of citizens, indutrial development, and civilizing influence of the arts, &c., but historically those steps have apparently devolved into various types of thuggery. i suspect that the distinction is primarily that the public owns the thuggery, whereas the laissez faire side hires private thugs, who are not permitted to unionize.

[Galactus]

Falagar,

Unless "the workers" are their own paymasters because they run small businesses. Which, if the protection of limited liability is removed, there is more incentive to become.

And that would oblierate a great portion of what industrial society is all about: Specialization and division of labor. The incredible wealth brought forth by industrial society is predicated on not everyone being a small business owner. (Which is something i think Marx eg, saw, and Smith certainly did) Everyone being a small business owner kind of implies that all business is going to be small, which isn't really workable on a large scale. (duh)

Which would logically lead to the idea that these small business owners need to combine their efforts in order to reach economy-of-scale benefits, which leads either to the modern corporation or to some kind of syndicalism, depending on how you go about it.

[Lord Mord]

RWH,

You keep looking at the law, and thinking it pre-dates corporations. It is the other way around.

Okay, so you said the Wiki article was wrong on this point, and I have to ask: what better or more authoritative reference exists which backs up this statement?

If you get rid of a central government, and the laws, it will not be long before Microsoft (as an example) adopts the Mexican Cartel's way of doing things. Microsoft won't go away because we embrace extreme Libertarian ideals.

To rephrase what Ser Scot has already said in a way I hope will be successful this time:

All corporations are businesses/organizations -- however, not all businesses or organizations are corporations.

From what I understand, the sine qua non which defines and unites the entities of the subgroup is limited liability. What makes your Mexican cartel not a corporation is that if a person took legal action against them, there would be no mechanism for the lords at the helm to say, "Well, you can take all the corporate assets the court gives you, but nobody can touch what's mine personally!". There is no corporation because there is no legal privilege extended them to have and maintain a corporate identity.

Therefore, it should be self-evident that while, yes, Microsoft as an organization and a business might continue to exist without a central government, as a coporation -- in its technically correct usage as such -- it would not.

[TerraPrime]

Sorry, got busy last couple of days.

At any rate, the point of the discussion that I was engaging Tormund in is that if you are going to have a government, then libertarianism is no more, and no less, susceptible to influence from business owners and other interest groups. We still have a small group of people making rules, however limited in scope they might be, and these people can be influenced. So I don't see how libertarianism is a net bonus in making the government more responsive to individuals as opposed to aggregated power pools like businesses and lobbyists.

As to the thought exercise on why we need a standard for the amount of lead in the paint, that's because the paint-makers shouldn't have to worry about making a product that's acceptable in one locality and then having it not acceptable and getting sued in another, all depending on the local jury's take.

[Aemon Stark]

I believe I clarified precisely what I meant by this when I stated no standing armies, and an unobtrusive, lightly armed, police force. Switzerland has a similar set up, I don't see roving gangs of corporate mercenaries wreaking havoc on their populace.

Point of information - have you been to Switzerland? One thing you do see there is fairly unapologetic xenophobia and racism given "democratic" expression via referenda. That, and really really expensive everything (at least in Zurich).

[TrueMetis]

Point of information - have you been to Switzerland? One thing you do see there is fairly unapologetic xenophobia and racism given "democratic" expression via referenda. That, and really really expensive everything (at least in Zurich).

That and Switzerland has compulsory military service.

[Rorshach]

The tricky part is in the administration of justice. Many libertarians believe that such things can be accomplished without the state. I believe that it could be done

Sorry if this has been said already, but this belief is the "pixie dust"-option. Sure, it sounds nice, but the chances of it succeding is nil. Zero. None.

What you'd get is the justice of the strong - as seen today in international "law".

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

At any rate, the point of the discussion that I was engaging Tormund in is that if you are going to have a government, then libertarianism is no more, and no less, susceptible to influence from business owners and other interest groups. We still have a small group of people making rules, however limited in scope they might be, and these people can be influenced. So I don't see how libertarianism is a net bonus in making the government more responsive to individuals as opposed to aggregated power pools like businesses and lobbyists.

The point is that the monied interests with have much less incentive to try to influence government because government is making fewer laws/regulations of concern to them. Sure, there is still the ability to influence such legislators, but if they're not dishing out tax breaks, subsidies, etc., and limiting themselves more to core governmental function on which most people agree or that aren't industry/business specific, there's not really much incentive to do so.

[14th Dragon]

The point is that the monied interests with have much less incentive to try to influence government is that government is making fewer laws/regulations of concern to them. Sure, there is still the ability to influence such legislators, but if they're not dishing out tax breaks, subsidies, etc., and limiting themselves more to core governmental function on which most people agree or that aren't industry/business specific, there's not really much incentive to do so.

If I understand you correctly the idea would be then the reduction of govenermental power would then devolve to such things, health care, retirement, safety, insurance, wages, etc, would then be a matter of individual contracts in a "free market". So it would be incumbent upon the consumers and employees to then collectively enforce through choice on working or buying only from those companies that reflect the working conditions, policies, and product quality and safety that they approve of. Thus companies would self regulate based on competition for workers and consumers. Is this the basic gist? (I did some more reading over the weekend.)

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

If I understand you correctly the idea would be then the reduction of govenermental power would then devolve to such things, health care, retirement, safety, insurance, wages, etc, would then be a matter of individual contracts in a "free market". So it would be incumbent upon the consumers and employees to then collectively enforce through choice on working or buying only from those companies that reflect the working conditions, policies, and product quality and safety that they approve of. Thus companies would self regulate based on competition for workers and consumers. Is this the basic gist? (I did some more reading over the weekend.)

This is the basic gist, though there is a spectrum of how involved folks want the government to be from not-at-all (anarcho-capitalists) to somewhere near the fringes of the republican party.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

double

[14th Dragon]

This is the basic gist, though there is a spectrum of how involved folks want the government to be from not-at-all (anarcho-capitalists) to somewhere near the fringes of the republican party.

This being the case does that not mean that the power will be automatically shifted to those that have more wealth, i.e. power to consume, or education, those skilled enough that there exists competition for their labour, thus the power will shift by design to the big and powerful? All that has been done is eliminate the middleman.