Therajraj: How Do You Anti Government

You are an anarchist, not a libertarian.

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I haven’t completely settled on my opinion on this.

So far I will leave it to the government to maintain a military just large enough to prevent invasions and maintain strong borders.

After that I do not know.

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That’s totes diff. Murica used to have bad laws, but we fixed them. It’s all good now.

Okay, you win. What the fuck ever.

And what if there aren’t enough funds to maintain that military at an appropriate level to function at that level? If say you need 100 billion dollars to prevent invasions, but the American citizens only want to voluntarily give you 75 billion.

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You can still tear apart his philosophy’s @anon50325502 :slight_smile:

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Right now to me this sounds an awful lot like the purge, where you have almost zero government. Wealthy people will care about themselves and purchase their own army/security forces and say fu to everyone else. They will also say fu to the limited Government and not volunteer any of their resources, because they already are safe with their army/security. Minus all the killing or course because I am assuming there are still laws they just won’t be enforced by a government.

I would say this is what @therajraj aspires to:

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There would be a very minimal government and very small amount of tax to pay for a military and strong borders.

With 20 trillion in debt and growing, we are eventually heading towards going back to a very minimal government. Basically once the US government can no longer borrow money.

No thanks. Have fun bashing you head into your desk.

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Pay attention to how as government size increases so does the corruption.

Your tax dollars aren’t even being used to pay for things in society - it’s being used to pay off interest on the debt so they government can continually borrow more on the future of your children or grandchildren.

Most of the fucked up shit the government is also kept well out of view of most. How many people know the US government is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world if not the biggest?

I bet very few

Raj, I think you like capitalism and free markets right?

Well, we have to have some way to ease adjustments in the market. Otherwise, very few people would be brave enough, to put themselves out there and start a business. And as some have mentioned, having people starving for a few months is a pretty big motivator to NOT do anything risky, and it would likely cause all kinds of instability and chaos for all of us.

Let’s say I want to start a company making handbags, and I employ 50 people. Great. But I’m vulnerable to shifts in the market right? You might also start a company and compete with me. Maybe you’re making nicer purses more efficiently? I can either become better, or I’m going to have to do something else, right? Let’s say I decide to retool and make something else, and that takes some time. Meanwhile, we have to ease these market changes through things like unemployment benefits. It’s to the advantage of everybody to ease these changes so people CAN take risks and start businesses.

The only argument is really a matter of degree. If we make benefits too good, we might discourage risk taking behavior, and entrepreneurship. Countries like Finland have grappled with this as they’ve sometimes had a 15% or higher unemployment rate with people sitting pretty comfortably waiting for a really good next opportunity, instead of jumping off of government benefits. Humans weigh risks all the time.

We could go back and forth looking at the data of where the sweet spot is in terms of creating a safety net that encourages, rather than discourages market participation or that discourages people from getting comfortable on our safety net as a way of life. Sure. We constantly have to be tweaking that as our economy changes.

BUT reasonable people on either side of the political aisle aren’t looking to tear down ANY accommodations for people who take risks, or who find themselves between jobs. This would be true if it was just America, or if we have a much more global market. I also like capitalism, so I’d much rather see us have ways to encourage and ease the market shifts, than look at using government to try to control the market, through undo restrictions on trade, having government control of industry, etc… Does that make sense? I’d WAY rather have some unemployment benefits than have Venezuela.

We don’t want people who are temporarily unemployed because of market shifts to starve. It’s REALLY bad for free markets, and for stability of our government. I think this is why you get some small L libertarians talking about how we might have less government, but NOT talking about killing any and all government programs.

We’re typically not looking at lawlessness, or anarchy, or going back to a frontier society, where we might starve if there is a drought one year. As a society, we don’t want to be without any way to ease market shifts that we can’t control. We might fall out in different places on HOW MUCH statism we want, but that’s about it. It eventually comes down to talking about very specific policy.

Yes, families and churches and charitable organizations can ease some of the pain, but most of us don’t want to pull back from ANY state supports.

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Very well written, @anon71262119. If I may summarize: Your contention (with which I agree) is that the great majority of us are at least a little bit collectivist, in that we do not wish either ourselves or others to be wholly at the mercy of the Invisible Hand. Where we differ is in terms of how much collectivism is needed/appropriate.

To which the anarcho-capitalist responds: I’m sorry about your economic plight, and the fact that your children are starving. But it still doesn’t give you the right to take money out of my pocket against my will.

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Exactly. Some of these government programs that Raj has been railing against actually make capitalism work better. If you really like capitalism, you want them in the right amounts. But yeah. Easing changes in the market, and creating at least a minimal standard of stability are good things. AND they tend to prevent other less market friendly ideas about how to create stability that are WAY less attractive to people who like freedom.

Strictly speaking, this is incorrect–any interference in the free market will, by definition, produce a suboptimal outcome from a capitalist perspective. However, seeing as how a purely capitalist economy can lead to catastrophic outcomes, most people recognize the practicality inherent in a mixed economy (eg, the govt programs of which you speak).

Consider, for example, the liquidity crisis of 2008. I have heard estimates (sorry, I can’t produce a supporting citation at the moment) that prior to the intervention of the Fed, the US airline industry was within three days of collapsing. As in, no flights. None. Now, in a ‘true’ capitalist system, that would have been allowed to happen. Needless to say, the effect of such a collapse on the entirety of the socioeconomic structure of the US would have been disastrous beyond imagining. But such events are probably inevitable in a strictly capitalist economy.

tl;dr While govt intervention may not make capitalism per se work better, there’s little doubt (in my mind at least) that it makes life ‘work better.’

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I think part of the reason you think unemployment benefits or some semblance of a social safety net is necessary is because you haven’t grasped how much the government has pillaged from it’s citizens.

  • In the other thread I posted a study that said the past few decades of regulations have shrunk the US GDP from 54 trillion to only 15 trillion. That’s 75% less than it would be without government regulations (I’m sure the figure is exaggerated but the point still stands)

  • The US government owns 1/3 of all land. Can you imagine how much economic activity could occur if that wasn’t all government property?

  • There would be tons of side jobs one could quickly pickup. Even in our government raped economy I can drive Uber if I need to make a little extra cash. As someone who takes Uber 2-5x per week I’ve met plenty of drivers who do it full time and live off it. Can you imagine the host of opportunities in a country with a tiny government? I doubt that many people would honestly starve unless they didn’t want to work.

  • Charities would be much more efficient at identifying and helping those in need. I’m sure we all know a person (or maybe even ourselves) who have taken money from the government by taking advantage of government mismanagement.

  • The cost to start a business has dramatically plummeted due to the internet. We no longer require a brick and mortar shop a lot of the time.

What I’m trying to get at here is whatever disincentive a lack of social safety net creates, it’s more than made up by peeling back the layers of rot that we see in the government. With all the extra wealth people would happily donate to worthwhile causes, we see it all the time. Log on to youtube and just see how many people support Youtubers through donations when it isn’t required as an example.

Oh and I forgot to add: government schools are absolutely terrible at preparing people to be economically productive once they finish. Think how much better the average worker would be under a system where schools weren’t government run?

True. I’ll accept the correction since we don’t have a pure free market or fully capitalistic system.

Raj could go off on specifics regarding what services might be federal vs local, or just on all kinds of policy tangents regarding govt intervention. Why we should subsidize my imaginary handbag business would be a good starting place. Wink.

Oh and just so you know the reason many people are poor in America is not because of a lack of opportunity but because they don’t want to work