Freedom Of Contract

[Demogorgon]

It has been a bit dull here lately, so time to liven matters up a bit, I'll do a spot of Libertarian bashing.

Specifically I want to attack the bizarre notion Libertarians have that people should be entirely "free" to form whatever contract they wish without the state interfering. As usual with Libertarianism this is shorthand for there should be no safeguards to prevent the stronger party from exploiting the weaker party. However let's look at a different problem.

"Freedom of contract", as usual with Libertarianism, means absence of Government restraint. Not a normal person's definition of freedom, but we will work with it. Libertarians say that the Government should not be involved in what individuals decide amongst themselves. It should be a private matter. This sounds nice enough, but what is a contract? It is a legal bond made between two or more parties to do or not do certain things and the Government shall enforce it. That is the crucial aspect here. If somebody is in breach of contract with you, you can appeal to the judiciary and if they rule in your favour, the Government will force the other party to comply or else pay you compensation.

Contracts are a Government matter if ever there was one. Without state enforcement they mean no more than the old favourite, the "oral contract". So given that it is the state that enforces any contract, should it not be the case that it is legitimate for the state to define what contracts it is going to enforce? In a fairly democratic society, this means the people as a whole have a say in drawing up the contract laws, thereby defining the rules as to what gets enforced and what doesn't.

Libertarians claim that this breaches individual freedom, but they are going to have trouble telling us how. Just because the law does not recognise something, doesn't mean it bans it. You can sign whatever outrageous document you please and the state will take no action against you, just don't expect the courts to force the exploited party to continue when they have had enough.

There is an exception when it comes to employment law of course, as there are minimum wage laws, but apart from that when Libertarians talk about freedom of contract, they actually mean that the Government should get more involved, enforcing contracts not currently enforced.

[trivas7]

It has been a bit dull here lately, so time to liven matters up a bit, I'll do a spot of Libertarian bashing.

Specifically I want to attack the bizarre notion Libertarians have that people should be entirely "free" to form whatever contract they wish without the state interfering.
Freedom to enter into contracts w/o government interfering is an implementation of the non-aggression principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle). Being an authoritarian state interventionist you wouldn't understand it, you don't believe that people have the right to act on behalf of their own self-interest.

[Demogorgon]

Freedom to enter into contracts w/o government interfering is an implementation of the non-aggression principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle). Being an authoritarian state interventionist you wouldn't understand it, you don't believe that people have the right to act on behalf of their own self-interest.
Christ, you are like Pavlov's dog. Mention the word state and off we go.

If you had read my post you would have seen the argument was that con tracts are by their definition state enforced legal bonds. Contracts that have no legal force aren't banned, the courts just won't recognise them. You are calling for more state participation in contracts, not less.

[Robert]

After the revolution, there will be no classes and no state. Since there will be no state, there will be no government agencies or bureaus either. Most here are against "the pigs" too, so for them there will be no police either.

A 13 year old walks into my dougnut shop and asks for work. I need and want the help. What do I tell him?

1) "Yes, but I can't pay you anything because that would be slavery which is against the law if we had laws, but we don't have laws because there's no government. So I have to let you work here if you want to, and you can come and go as you please, I think, but I cannot tell you what to do because we don't have bosses, see, so you aren't going to learn anything and ... wait, where are you going, kid? I thought you wanted a job! Lazy kid! What's that? No, don't report me, please! We can negotiate this. I think."

2) "No, because I can't exploit anyone, especially a child"?

3) "No, because the office of child protective services will jail and fine me"?

They probably don't have doughnuts in Scotland. Make it a bakery.


Contracts that have no legal force aren't bannedJust saw that .... Certain contracts w/o legal force certainly are "banned" now. Here anyway. Do you mean that after the Revolution I'll be free to hire my kid but he can't make me pay him, even if he takes me to court?

[danyboy27]

do you mean social contract?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

that thing that implies that citizen of the state should loose a certain number of their right in order to protect social order?

to me social contract sound a reasonable thing that should exist in every society, communist or capitalist.

[RedKnight]

I just want to remind everyone that both force and fraud would still be prohibited, under the law. Also contracts might not just be between indivisuals, there would still be union contracts as well. Makes you wonder though what life would differ under anarcho-syndicalism, and how labor relations would be enforced, without a worker's government. How would we prevent a return to capitalism?

[Demogorgon]

After the revolution, there will be no classes and no state. Since there will be no state, there will be no government agencies or bureaus either. Most here are against "the pigs" too, so for them there will be no police either.

We are not talking about any given hypothetical revolution. We are discussing Libertarianism and its interesting notion of contracts.

For the record I am not an anarchist, so your talk of "after the revolution" in reference to me is a bit silly, as that isn't what I seek to achieve. Mind you if an anarchist society were to come about there wouldn't be any contracts anyway, would there? With no state to enforce them, they wouldn't mean anything.

To put my original point another way, Libertarians like to talk about freedom of contract, but they ignore the fact that freedom to contract is actually, in their parlance, a positive right. It requires Government action to mean anything. Moreover they implicitly admit this when they claim that Government refusal to enforce certain contracts is limiting their rights. The Government isn't banning them from signing most contracts they are thinking of, it is just refusing to recognise them.

They are demanding that the Government does more and grants them more positive rights by expanding the number of contracts it will enforce for them.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

do you mean social contract?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

that thing that implies that citizen of the state should loose a certain number of their right in order to protect social order?

to me social contract sound a reasonable thing that should exist in every society, communist or capitalist.
No I'm pretty sure he means contracts between individuals. The idea of freedom of contract is that humans should be free to make contracts on whatever terms they wish in order to maximize freedom, without the state intervening against them or on their behalf. The downside is that people often find themselves in positions where they are extremely limited in what they can demand from a contract, ie they have unequal bargaining power, due to being in a coercive relationship like that between a worker and an employer or a landlord and a tenant. In such cases the state may have to intervene to ensure fair terms for the little guy.

[Robert]

Mind you if an anarchist society were to come about there wouldn't be any contracts anyway, would there? With no state to enforce them, they wouldn't mean anything.

Yes, but I don't think anarchy and libertarianism are coterminous. The few libertarians I know and materials I've read contemplate a government with the limited function of protecting the populace from fraud and violence. I think most contract disputes, though not all, would fall under the rubric of fraud. But it's a stretch.


For the record I am not an anarchist, so your talk of "after the revolution" in reference to me is a bit silly, as that isn't what I seek to achieve.


I figured that and just wanted to draw you out on it. But this points up one of the left's (many) problems discussed in another thread: it can't agree on the primordial question of whether there should be a state or not.

I learned the following on this board and find it hilarious: Anarchists are opposed to the idea, advocated by most Marxists, that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to achieve a classless society and instead argue for the simultanious abolition of capitalism & the state.

Since you aren't a capitalist and you aren't an anarchist, Demo, do you default to the belief of "most Marxists" that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to eliminate class? Who gets to be dictator? If you don't want the job, I'll be glad to handle it. Don't worry, I'll abdicate just as soon as I deem society ready. (You do trust me, don't you?)

[Demogorgon]

Yes, but I don't think anarchy and libertarianism are coterminous. The few libertarians I know and materials I've read contemplate a government with the limited function of protecting the populace from fraud and violence. I think most contract disputes, though not all, would fall under the rubric of fraud. But it's a stretch.
I know what they want and I am contending that that is positive action. Obviously the "force and fraud" catechism can be trotted out here, but it seems more and more a cop out. It is an expensive and complicated business to maintain a court system and enforcement mechanism for contractual disputes and Libertarians want to expand it while removing the tax payers right to determine what the "rules" are going to be. The mental acrobatics needed to call that "freedom" are getting harder and harder to perform.


I figured that and just wanted to draw you out on it. But this points up one of the left's (many) problems discussed in another thread: it can't agree on the primordial question of whether there should be a state or not.

I learned the following on this board and find it hilarious: Anarchists are opposed to the idea, advocated by most Marxists, that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to achieve a classless society and instead argue for the simultanious abolition of capitalism & the state.

Since you aren't a capitalist and you aren't an anarchist, Demo, do you default to the belief of "most Marxists" that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to eliminate class? Who gets to be dictator? If you don't want the job, I'll be glad to handle it. Don't worry, I'll abdicate just as soon as I deem society ready. (You do trust me, don't you?)
I'll be the dictator obviously. I will make the perfect philosopher king.

Look, the dictatorship referred to isn't meant to mean dictatorship in the modern understanding of the word. But rather the nineteenth century meaning of "rule". It means the working class will take control as a whole, in a democratic manner while the remains of the class system are dismantled.

Why people insist on continuing to use that antiquated term, so confusing to most people, is beyond me, though it does make it easier for Stalinists and Maoists to defend their pet tyrants by accusing you of having a "bourgeoisie understanding" of dictatorship whenever you call them such, leading the argument into a squabble over what the term means and deflecting discussion away from the dictatorial methods of said tyrant.

At any rate, I will tell you plainly that I have no interest in a dictatorship. Any system of COmmunism will have to be fully democratic.

[Labor Shall Rule]

He does have a 'bourgeois understanding' of the state. It has no class nature to him, it's an abstract body that creates it's own unique laws of motion. He makes historical actors out to be dinosaurs when they are nothing but tiny mice. It's his poison of choice to absorb himself in such views.

A 'state' (just like every other product of our environment) was created at a specific place, at a specific time, and under specific social and economic conditions. If you don't look at it like that, then it's hard to clearly distinguish between the 'dictatorship' you read about in your silly textbooks, and the actual dictatorship of the laboring classes that revolutionary Marxian-socialists demand.

[Demogorgon]

oops

Sorry to Labour Shall Rule

[Robert]

Was that targeted at me? Because it certainly has nothing to do with what I said or believe. No! It was targeted at me. Quit trying to usurp my persecution. And he's more than half right.

I do have a 'bourgeois understanding' of the state as he defines bourgeois. Guilty as charged.

The state has no class nature to me. Guilty again. That's because my notion of "class," as we've been over before, is really worse than he suspects. I don't want to belabor the point because we'll just never agree on it, but class in the USA at least is a preposterous notion because of its mutability and permeability. It exists here as a social phenomenon and reality, but that's as far as I can go.

As for this:
" an abstract body that creates it's own unique laws of motion. He makes historical actors out to be dinosaurs when they are nothing but tiny mice." I'm not sure what he means, but I think it's some variant of "he's too dim to understand historical materialism." Whatever.


A 'state' (just like every other product of our environment) was created at a [I]specific place, at a specific time, and under specific social and economic conditions. If you don't look at it like that, then it's hard to clearly distinguish between the 'dictatorship' you read about in your silly textbooks, and the actual dictatorship of the laboring classes that revolutionary Marxian-socialists demand Oh, I understand that by "dictatorship" neither you nor he means Stalinism. But that's what you're going to need if you want real revolution. But you really don't. You collectively, I mean.

[apathy maybe]

If you had read my post you would have seen the argument was that con tracts are by their definition state enforced legal bonds. Contracts that have no legal force aren't banned, the courts just won't recognise them. You are calling for more state participation in contracts, not less.
Heh, I like libertarian baiting. (Though to be fair, they are more sane then "anarcho"-capitalists.)

At present, not only will certain contacts not be recognised by courts, certain are in fact, illegal to enter into (for example, hiring someone to kill someone else). I'm not sure how a libertarian would deal with that issue.



I figured that and just wanted to draw you out on it. But this points up one of the left's (many) problems discussed in another thread: it can't agree on the primordial question of whether there should be a state or not.

I learned the following on this board and find it hilarious: [I]Anarchists are opposed to the idea, advocated by most Marxists, that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to achieve a classless society and instead argue for the simultanious abolition of capitalism & the state.
The thing is, that Marxists can't even agree on what a proletariat state would look like... Many say that there was a proletariat state in the USSR, for example. (When it finished, depends on who you talk to, Leninists say about when he died, Stalinists say, about when /he/ died...) Except then you get other Marxists (autonomist types generally), who say that it wasn't a proletariat state.

You get some Marxists (including some Leninists) who have an idea for the transitional period that is very similar to what many anarchists advocate.

So, when you say that leftists can't agree on whether there should be a state or not, leftists can't even agree on a definition for "state", and Marxist a definition for "proletariat state".

[Schrödinger's Cat]

When will trivas acknowledge that there's no difference between a state and a landlord?

Power conferred under wealth forms a notorious hierarchy that should be opposed by anyone who wants to stick true to the original concepts of libertarianism, even if it said hierarchy doesn't completely go away. According to trivas, it would be acceptable for someone to sell themselves into slavery. Welcome back debtors' prisons!

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Speaking of finger pointing, I found a wonderful quote by Rothbard:


"In fact, lighthouses could easily charge ships for their services, if they were permitted to own those surfaces of the sea which they transform by their illumination. A man who takes unowned land and transforms it for productive use is readily granted ownership of that land, which can henceforth be used economically; why should not the same rule apply to that other natural resource, the sea? If the lighthouse owner were granted ownership of the sea surface that he illuminates, he could then charge each ship as it passes through. The deficiency here is a failure not of the free market but of the government and the society in not granting a property right to the rightful owner of a resource."

You own the sea if your light falls on it.

Lawls. "Libertarian" capitalists.

[Bud Struggle]

It has been a bit dull here lately, so time to liven matters up a bit, I'll do a spot of Libertarian bashing.


You know how copper wire was invented? Two Scotsmen fighting over a penny.:)

[synthesis]

I learned the following on this board and find it hilarious: Anarchists are opposed to the idea, advocated by most Marxists, that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to achieve a classless society and instead argue for the simultanious abolition of capitalism & the state.

Since you aren't a capitalist and you aren't an anarchist, Demo, do you default to the belief of "most Marxists" that a transitional dictatorship is necessary to eliminate class? Who gets to be dictator? If you don't want the job, I'll be glad to handle it. Don't worry, I'll abdicate just as soon as I deem society ready. (You do trust me, don't you?)

Socialism is a dictatorship of the proletariat in the same way that capitalism is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

In both cases, they are democracies in form and dictatorships in function. It's not a dictatorship in the sense of a military junta - it merely means that one class has power and another does not.

[Dean]

Freedom to enter into contracts w/o government interfering is an implementation of the non-aggression principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle).

Contract "freedom" is the institutionalization of the ability to routinely and grossly violate the NAP under the pretext of "debt." This allows the maintenance of controls over human beings up to and including slavery. The only freedom involved with contract law is in fact the freedom to constant and spontaneous control over your own human faculties, free from any contractual obligations. I would actually go further in saying that any enforceable contract is in fact a "social contract" and therefore a form of governance between the concerned parties.


Being an authoritarian state interventionist you wouldn't understand it, you don't believe that people have the right to act on behalf of their own self-interest.
This is where you are painfully wrong. I find it amazing that you make such overt, unnecessary logical fallacies. This must be some form of psychological gravity, meant to keep you from truly losing it.

As communists, we believe not only that you have the right to act in your own self-interest, but that you should as a moral compulsion. To be subservient is perhaps the worse vice a human being can have, and contract law is nothing more than a way to maintain the rigidity and power of a socially obstinate system of control. The fact is that, as a limitation on human faculties, contractual obligations should be opposed fully by anybody who is libertarian, anarchist or communist in any way, shape or form.

[Robert]

It's not a dictatorship in the sense of a military junta - it merely means that one class has power and another does not.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Feslin]

It's proper to have the state enforce contracts.

Once a contract is signed, any property or service promised becomes the property of the recipient.

It's the proper role of government to ensure people have whatever property is rightfully theirs.

[Demogorgon]

It's proper to have the state enforce contracts.

Once a contract is signed, any property or service promised becomes the property of the recipient.

It's the proper role of government to ensure people have whatever property is rightfully theirs.
Why should I pay taxes so that you can have that privilege?

[Feslin]

Because it's the proper function of government to defend us from the coercion of others.

This includes breach of contract.

[Demogorgon]

Because it's the proper function of government to defend us from the coercion of others.

This includes breach of contract.Why do you get to decide what the proper function of Government is? Most people would consider the proper function of Government to be to provide free education and healthcare. What makes you more qualified to decide than them?

[RGacky3]

Socialism is a dictatorship of the proletariat in the same way that capitalism is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

In both cases, they are democracies in form and dictatorships in function. It's not a dictatorship in the sense of a military junta - it merely means that one class has power and another does not.

That thinking is so flawed, and in my estimation was an excuse for Lenins power.

If the proletariat have the power, then there is no bourgeoisie, but definition they don't exist.


I don't want to belabor the point because we'll just never agree on it, but class in the USA at least is a preposterous notion because of its mutability and permeability. It exists here as a social phenomenon and reality, but that's as far as I can go.

Class, even in the united states is not that flexible, take a look at statistics, and class is not dependant on staticness. If a slave is a slave for 5 years then becomes free, its still slavery.

Class in the United States is very real and is becoming more engrained, the State most definately is classist by nature, and it must be, because the ruling class is the ruling class, thats why AIG gets a bailout and workers do not. AIG must get a bailout because its part of the ruling class, and if the ruling class fails in America the lower classes suffer.

As far as Freedom of Contract goes, because of class dynamics, under Capitalism a free contract, at least between employer and employee, can never really be free, the only time it gets somewhat free is during industrial action, when the employer has to worry somewhat a little bit more.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Because it's the proper function of government to defend us from the coercion of others.


Owning property is coercion. You, a landlord, a micro-state, are performing the exact same functions as government. You're collecting taxes (rent) and restricting the freedoms others have in a geographical area by claiming ultimate and objective sovereignty.

Basically, you want a large state to defend other, smaller states. If a state persists, all geographical areas should be treated as we would the government. If a state whithers away, then it's a moot discussion - capitalism becomes impossible.

[trivas7]

Owning property is coercion.

No; you are merely anthropomorphizing a material value.

The idea that matter is constituted by social relationships reminds me of animist doctrines that teach that bubbling brooks are the personification of faeries, that the natural world is populated by deities.

[IcarusAngel]

Landowners morph into tyrants as easily as yesteryear's slave owners. Forcing the government to protected privatized tyrannies is and always has been one of the worst forms of totalitarianism imaginable.

[RGacky3]

The idea that matter is constituted by social relationships reminds me of animist doctrines that teach that bubbling brooks are the personification of faeries, that the natural world is populated by deities.

That is one of the dumbest things I've read this year.

Someone having food, and another not having food, and the person with food having power over the one without simply because of that is nothing like anamist supersticions, its common sense.

That example you just gave brought the discussion down to such a low rediculous level.

[trivas7]

Landowners morph into tyrants as easily as yesteryear's slave owners. Forcing the government to protected privatized tyrannies is and always has been one of the worst forms of totalitarianism imaginable.
Perhaps if things and people didn't so easily "morph" into hobgoblins you might more acutely see the facts as they are.


That is one of the dumbest things I've read this year.

Well, you simply haven't read your Marx.

[RGacky3]

Well, you simply haven't read your Marx.

A. Thanks for responding to my post, and backing up your statements, I'm presuming you have nothing.

B. I'm not a Marxist.

C. I don't think anything Marx wrote was as rediculous as claiming that social relationships having to do with control of resources is just as mysical as believing anamist supersticions of nature spirits or whatever. I don't think he COULD have wrote something so rediculous.


Perhaps if things and people didn't so easily "morph" into hobgoblins you might more acutely see the facts as they are.

Again, ignore the post, take a small section out of context, twist it into something else, argue againts that. Trivias, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

[Feslin]

Why do you get to decide what the proper function of Government is?

I'm just cool like that.


Most people would consider the proper function of Government to be to provide free education and healthcare.

Strangely, most people are the recipients of free education and healthcare, at the expense of others.

They're clearly biased.


Owning property is coercion.

You leftists like to destroy the English language, doncha?


You, a landlord, a micro-state, are performing the exact same functions as government.

Oh? A landlord robs his tenants at gunpoint, gives the money to the majority of the tenants, all of whom collectively have the power to give the landlord more power?

No. He's just doing as he wishes with his property without harming anyone else.


You're collecting taxes (rent) and restricting the freedoms others have in a geographical area by claiming ultimate and objective sovereignty.

You don't even know what "taxes" means, do you?


Basically, you want a large state to defend other, smaller states.

Actually I just want THE state to defend the individuals it's paid to defend.

[Demogorgon]

Strangely, most people are the recipients of free education and healthcare, at the expense of others.

They're clearly biased.

Yet you do wish to have your property protected and your contracts enforced at the expense of others. Why should I be "robbed at gunpoint" by the state to pay for this?

[Feslin]

Yet you do wish to have your property protected and your contracts enforced at the expense of others. Why should I be "robbed at gunpoint" by the state to pay for this?

Because, as has been pointed out by some Marxist (I forget who) in this thread, capitalism can't exist without the state.

As such, freedom can't exist without the state.

The idea is to protect all citizens from the initiation of violence and fraud.

[Demogorgon]

Because, as has been pointed out by some Marxist (I forget who) in this thread, capitalism can't exist without the state.

As such, freedom can't exist without the state.

The idea is to protect all citizens from the initiation of violence and fraud.
I thought "robbing at gunpoint" was violence?

Either taxes are justified and it is simply a question of debating what level they should be at, or they are not.

You cannot have it both ways. You want to say that taxes are justified when they are for causes you support, but unjustified when used to pay for things you oppose. That is inconsistent and a sign of remarkable immaturity and is certainly not going to convince anybody.

So are tax's theft or are they not?

[synthesis]

That thinking is so flawed, and in my estimation was an excuse for Lenins power.

Your Hegelian tendencies surface once again.

Lenin did not need an excuse for power. Russian realities demanded autocracy. The "heavy hand of government" had prospered for so long under the Czars that simply doing away with it would have been political (and personal) suicide.

Marx always intended the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to be exactly the same as what we call "democracy" now - he intended it to evolve in the industrialized world, with its dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (the West) democratic? In a certain sense. But the economy is still under autocratic control, even though...


I don't want to belabor the point because we'll just never agree on it, but class in the USA at least is a preposterous notion because of its mutability and permeability. It exists here as a social phenomenon and reality, but that's as far as I can go.

As has been said before, capitalism is fundamentally autocratic - even if the character of the autocracy mutates and shifts in form.

Some people own the means of production and others toil to create something useful out of those means of production. That's capitalism.

The former is fundamentally unnecessary; the latter will inherit the Earth. That's Marxism.

[RGacky3]

Because, as has been pointed out by some Marxist (I forget who) in this thread, capitalism can't exist without the state.

As such, freedom can't exist without the state.

I hope you see the oxymoronic circular logic in that statement.

[Feslin]

I thought "robbing at gunpoint" was violence?

Yes.


Either taxes are justified and it is simply a question of debating what level they should be at, or they are not.

Taxes used for what it should be used for are simply what is owed by the individual for their freedom.

Hell, I'm fine with people not paying taxes, just let it be known anyone who initiates violence against them won't be punished.


You cannot have it both ways. You want to say that taxes are justified when they are for causes you support, but unjustified when used to pay for things you oppose.

Yes I can. It's simply a matter of understanding the proper role of government.

[Plagueround]

I've often wondered, do those of you that claim to abhor property and materials taken by force, violence, and fraud think that premise should be taken to it's "logical" conclusion, in that they would be given back to their rightful owners historically?

I mean, being half indigenous and half immigrant I'd have to stand on one leg or something, but I'm a fan of consistency.

[trivas7]

This is where you are painfully wrong. I find it amazing that you make such overt, unnecessary logical fallacies. This must be some form of psychological gravity, meant to keep you from truly losing it.

As communists, we believe not only that you have the right to act in your own self-interest, but that you should as a moral compulsion. To be subservient is perhaps the worse vice a human being can have, and contract law is nothing more than a way to maintain the rigidity and power of a socially obstinate system of control. The fact is that, as a limitation on human faculties, contractual obligations should be opposed fully by anybody who is libertarian, anarchist or communist in any way, shape or form.
Yes, but per the upside-down morality of socialism, no one acts on their own behalf, one acts only as the agent of their class affiliation. There is no individual that is being subjugated, only a proxy for its morally bankrupt class. But in the real world contractual obligations are how individuals and society maintains itself. Contemporary society can't function w/o it. Neither I would dare say could society function w/o contractual obligation in the dream-time of communist society.

[Robert]

they would be given back to their rightful owners historically?

This actually bothers me in theory, but I don't know that every molecule of land on Earth can be traced back to some aboriginal owner. The American Indians were here before the Europeans, yes, but they didn't assert rights as to everything, and we can't know that they were the aboriginal owners either.

Do you think that when the Comanches broke off from the Shoshone, and went South, that they respected the ownership rights of every pleasant, populated valley of gentle basket weavers they came upon on their way to New Mexico? I doubt it somehow.

[WhitemageofDOOM]

Strangely, most people are the recipients of free education and healthcare, at the expense of others.

Oh yes, free education. Oh thank adam smith for free education.
You knew he was one of the first people to demand it from the government right? Free markets require an educated populace. If there not educated it's feudalism not capitalism.


Oh? A landlord robs his tenants at gunpoint

Yes actually. All property is at gun point, how else can you enforce it other than by shooting anyone else who wants to use it.
At the end of the day the owner is the initiator of force. If initiation of force is illegitimate then property is either illegitimate or irrelevant.


gives the money to the majority of the tenants, all of whom collectively have the power to give the landlord more power?

No. He's just doing as he wishes with his property without harming anyone else.

This is different from government how? You live on there property, you abide by there rules. Among the rules are rent and club dues(taxes). There is no diffrence between goverment property and private property beyond the modern concept that the goverment is owned by the people as a whole and not by a sovreign monarch.


Actually I just want THE state to defend the individuals it's paid to defend.

The rich? Government exists not to protect the rich from the poor, but for the benefit of the people rich and poor.



Yes I can. It's simply a matter of understanding the proper role of government.

The role of goverment is whatever the people say it is, that's democracy.

[Plagueround]

This actually bothers me in theory, but I don't know that every molecule of land on Earth can be traced back to some aboriginal owner. The American Indians were here before the Europeans, yes, but they didn't assert rights as to everything, and we can't know that they were the aboriginal owners either.

Do you think that when the Comanches broke off from the Shoshone, and went South, that they respected the ownership rights of every pleasant, populated valley of gentle basket weavers they came upon on their way to New Mexico? I doubt it somehow.

Glad to see we agree on something. ;)

[Demogorgon]

Yes I can. It's simply a matter of understanding the proper role of government.
Which thus far hasn't been defined as anything more detailed than what you say it is. Your signature has the ridiculously pompous phrase "morality through reason", so let's have some reason. A proper argument following proper logic. It may shock you to learn this, but nobody is particularly impressed by "because I say so" arguments. YOu need to come up with something better.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Indeed. If you're going to tout your beliefs in a forum where half the user base is anarchist, I would think you'd recognize that "proper role of government" falls flat without any support.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Yes, but per the upside-down morality of socialism, no one acts on their own behalf, one acts only as the agent of their class affiliation.

Says you.

[GPDP]

Yes I can. It's simply a matter of understanding the proper role of government.

What I love about this statement is the sheer arrogance emanating from it. Watch out, you crazy commies! This guy's got all the answers!

No, seriously, if you plan to hold an intelligent conversation, you could at the very least try to make a point, and justify it. You do this by following a very basic format: "I believe... because..."

So, when we ask you what this so-called proper role of government is, and why it is such, what you should have said is "I believe the proper role of government is this and this and this, because of the following reasons." But what you, in your ultimate arrogance, basically said, is "this is the proper role of government." You present the point as objective, value-free fact, when a matter such as the role of government is so abstract and laden with value judgments that you can't possibly hope to be taken seriously by anyone other than your fellow "libertarians" and Randroids. I can just as easily say that the proper role of government is to fuck off and die, and by the standards set by your post, that would be perfectly valid.

So no, that doesn't fly here. If you're gonna argue about the proper role of government in your "libertarian" society, stop dilly-dallying and make a value judgment in regards to government, and try to justify it. Tell us why you believe the proper role of government is what you say it is. Only then can this conversation go anywhere.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I think freedom of contract is a wonderful idea. Too bad the phrase is abused to mean "freedom to blackmail." No geographical area should have a limited sovereign when others regularly reside (and especially) work in that area.