SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
Would you care to give an objective definition of "greed"?
end of civilization
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Padawanbater2
Well-Known Member
excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/greed?s=t
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
If you just pulled a definition from an online dictionary you didn't put a lot of thought into it.
The problem is your use of the word "excessive".
Excessive to whom?
In your world who gets to set up the criteria for who has enough and how much is excessive?
Everyone has a different opinion on this. I've heard some christians look at other christians driving a new Lexus and say "you can't be a christian and drive a car that expensive. "
But what if the guy in the Lexus makes 440k a year and the cost of the car is nothing to him.
This is why I used the word "objective " in my question. Because all definitions I've seen are entirely subjective.
On the flip side you can objectively define jealousy and envy.
One who devalues another, their possessions, or accomplishments because they have less than them.
Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
thats the definition for a Leftist.
(see Bucky, Toby and AC's collected works)
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
If the state of nature is brutish and short, why would you want a system that empowers some people AUTOMATIC
control over others due to their position in a coercively imposed hierarchy?
Aren't the chosen ones capable of being brutish and nasty? History answers that with an EMPHATIC yes.
Given that they have legal control over others, what do you think the result will be ?
I'm afraid many here, haven't considered that in a decentralization of power, peace is much more possible. In a centralization of power via coercion, it is IMPOSSIBLE, since coercion is the glue that makes the centralized power possible. Hint - coercion CANNOT create peace, when it exists it has ALREADY made peace impossible.
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
To change ourselves is the first step, good on you.
People on a large scale are obedient, even when it is nonsensical.
Obedience to nonsense is nonsensical.
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
That may all be true. However in modern society's in the west we have found a way to minimize ccorcion to a non burdensome level. I mean seriously Rob, there can't be that many things you or I want to do that we are not allowed to do, and they aren't very vital.
My inability to legally grow possess and smoke pot isn't a life altering form of oppression.
The tradeoff is that we coerce those who would do us all great harm into tiny little rooms for numbers of years.
We're not that coerced.
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
Your reply is an attempt to have something both ways. First you say we need a given coercive system to prevent coercion that might happen...then you say coercion isn't all that bad.
Coercion is bad, therefore systems that employ it are flawed. Offensive force is bad, defensive force is justified.
You are prevented from doing a multitude of things that you should not be prevented from doing. I could list thousands or even millions of things here that would illustrate my point, but it isn't necessary, it is self evident.
Imposed order and freedom are not the same things.
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
I agree there are lots of things I am coerced not to do. Many of them I have no interest in doing. Most are not important.
The coercion that would exist in your world of no centralized coercion would be more intimate. Like the kind of coercion that existed in the old west.
The largest group of young men with guns makes the laws. They are much more coercive. Their coercion has no mechanism for redress.
You couldn't petition the James gang not to rob your bank. You couldn't vote them out of office.
Tell me more about your idea world and I might come around. How does it protect property rights? How does it protect civil rights from civilians against other civilians?
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
Thank you for your inquiry. All of your concerns are valid. I read a book a long time ago, The Market for Liberty, that helped me answer those questions. It's available online. A bit dated in the examples (first published over 40 years ago) , but the concepts of how a free market solves those problems are still applicable. Peace.
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
I am greedy for the ability to own myself and my possessions, but not others or their possessions. Words are funny sometimes.
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
It's an interesting idea rob. I do agree with your sentiment.
I'm your world through I think we'd all been to be communists at the community level.
A few dozen families would need to get together for common protection and support.
I think you'd see a massive regression in societies technology, health care and all the modern conveniences.
People wouldn't have the confidence to start businesses I don't think.
I'm your world through I think we'd all been to be communists at the community level.
A few dozen families would need to get together for common protection and support.
I think you'd see a massive regression in societies technology, health care and all the modern conveniences.
People wouldn't have the confidence to start businesses I don't think.
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
E
From a review found at the Mises Institute website.....
This book is very radical in the true sense of that term: it gets to the root of the problem of government and provides a rethinking of the whole organization of society. They start at the beginning with the idea of the individual and his rights, work their way through exchange and the market, expose government as the great enemy of mankind, and then—and here is the great surprise—they offer a dramatic expansion of market logic into areas of security and defense provision.
Their discussion of this controversial topic is integrated into their libertarian theoretical apparatus. It deals with private arbitration agencies in managing with disputes and criminality, the role of insurers in providing profitable incentives for security, and private agencies in their capacity as protection services. It is for this reason that Hans Hoppe calls this book an "outstanding yet much neglected analysis of the operation of competing security producers."
The section on war and the state is particularly poignant. "The more government 'defends' its citizens, the more it provokes tensions and wars, as unnecessary armies wallow carelessly about in distant lands and government functionaries, from the highest to the lowest, throw their weight around in endless, provocating power grabs. The war machine established by government is dangerous to both foreigners and its own citizens, and this machine can operate indefinitely without any effective check other than the attack of a foreign nation."
Also overlooked is the Tannehill's challenging plan for desocialization or transition to a full free society. They argue against privatization as it is usually understood, on grounds that government is not the owner of public property and so it cannot sell it. Public property should be seized or homesteaded by the workers or by people with the strongest interest it in, and then put on the open market. If that sounds crazy or chaotic, you might change your mind after reading their case.
From a review found at the Mises Institute website.....
This book is very radical in the true sense of that term: it gets to the root of the problem of government and provides a rethinking of the whole organization of society. They start at the beginning with the idea of the individual and his rights, work their way through exchange and the market, expose government as the great enemy of mankind, and then—and here is the great surprise—they offer a dramatic expansion of market logic into areas of security and defense provision.
Their discussion of this controversial topic is integrated into their libertarian theoretical apparatus. It deals with private arbitration agencies in managing with disputes and criminality, the role of insurers in providing profitable incentives for security, and private agencies in their capacity as protection services. It is for this reason that Hans Hoppe calls this book an "outstanding yet much neglected analysis of the operation of competing security producers."
The section on war and the state is particularly poignant. "The more government 'defends' its citizens, the more it provokes tensions and wars, as unnecessary armies wallow carelessly about in distant lands and government functionaries, from the highest to the lowest, throw their weight around in endless, provocating power grabs. The war machine established by government is dangerous to both foreigners and its own citizens, and this machine can operate indefinitely without any effective check other than the attack of a foreign nation."
Also overlooked is the Tannehill's challenging plan for desocialization or transition to a full free society. They argue against privatization as it is usually understood, on grounds that government is not the owner of public property and so it cannot sell it. Public property should be seized or homesteaded by the workers or by people with the strongest interest it in, and then put on the open market. If that sounds crazy or chaotic, you might change your mind after reading their case.
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
Nothing should prevent people from forming alliances that they all voluntarily agree to. It is when people are forced to be encompassed in anothers group when the problems start.
Also, the things you fear wouldn't happen in a decentralized society with true freedom, the opposite would. Ideas are stifled by central authority, it is in the nature of coercion to suppress, not to enlighten.
I really think you might like the book I suggested, it addresses many of your concerns quite well.
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
Private artibitration agencies?
Where is the coercion to uphold their decisions? What would stop one of the parties to these voluntary proceedings from failing to comply with the results if they don't like the outcome?
I have an uncle who is a judge. He says that most judicial orders have to be complied with voluntarily because there is little or no means to enforce their decisions. Our entire system relies on voluntary submission to the decisions. The entire civil justice system would collapse if one quarter of the people ignored the results.
That tells me two things. Coercion isn't as widespread as you'd think, and that it is voluntary.
Where is the coercion to uphold their decisions? What would stop one of the parties to these voluntary proceedings from failing to comply with the results if they don't like the outcome?
I have an uncle who is a judge. He says that most judicial orders have to be complied with voluntarily because there is little or no means to enforce their decisions. Our entire system relies on voluntary submission to the decisions. The entire civil justice system would collapse if one quarter of the people ignored the results.
That tells me two things. Coercion isn't as widespread as you'd think, and that it is voluntary.
Rob Roy
Well-Known Member
Good questions. At the risk of sounding like a religious zealot or a pestering Jehova Witness... All your questions are answered in the book I suggested. A bit later I may tackle them, gotta feed the chickens now. Peace.
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
The book is merely an opinion of a man, like you and me. I put no more weight in them than I do yours or mine .
My point was that we may have a coercive government, however we (not individually but as a whole) consent to that coercion. Therefore it cannot be said to be truly coercive, unlike an absolute monarch or something.
If the coercion gets to be too much, all we need to do is act within the framework of that coercive structure to replace those at the top.
Granted this is complicated because of the apathy of the American electorate. But I would say that apathy is a result of not too much coercion.
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
SmokeyDan
Well-Known Member
In what way? I've heard you lay claim to a modest fortune. I'll accept you at your word that you took the free house and land, money from your wife's job and brought grow stuff and did what anyone with no other commitments could do; grow a weed and sell its product in a state protected gray market. Congratulations on not failing at a simple task.
But Dr.K has beat the shit out of you in terms of knowledge accumulation.
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
my wife's been ill, i'm paying the full mortgage and bills right now bignbushy.
have you managed to continue concealing your homosexuality from your daddy so that he keeps paying your rent, princess?
i noticed you couldn't even get those shitty little plants you were growing in the woods to harvest.
what a shame, at least your fellow white supremacist buddies made it to harvest!