Real World Event Discussions

Iraq Situation is Bullshit

POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 10, 2024 22:11
VIEWED: 28270
PAGE 15 of 17

DRAKON

Saturday, October 4, 2003 10:02 AM

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You seem to view the range of possible actions as static, in other words, capitalism was always there but society needed to stumble around for a bit before revising it's ideas to match the activity, whereas I take a different tack. See further.

Okay, I don't think this quite reflects my view. But lets keep looking here to see where the bugs are.

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Then you are infringing on my ability to make myself happy, and violating my rights to my property. Also, as you do not want me to do the same to you, it would not be a good idea for you to start such an activity.

Does this mean then that regulations controlling pollution are a good thing?

So? At the risk of sounding like a first grader, you started it. You need to explain why it would be okay for you to violate my property rights, but not okay for me to violate yours.

Remember, those rights are essentially negative rights, and as such allow the construction of mutually beneficial reciprocal arraingments. I only respect your rights because that benefits me. I don't care about you in particular, being the selfish bastard I am. If that observation does not have a benefitical effect, then why do it?

To put it another way, if you don't I won't. You don't respect my rights, I won't respect yours. It would actually be detrimental for me to let you use my "kind heartedness" against me.

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What about in the case where drugs cause addiction even with first-time use? Who picks up the bill for an addict's medical treatment or- presuming they have violated OTHER laws in chasing their habit- incarceration?

What about it? As long as you don't make it my business, by creating a danger to me and mine, it ain't my business. Once you make it my business, then you put me in a bad situation, and might not like my solution.

Simply don't ask me to pick up the tab for your treatment. Because as it is my money, I will "treat" you in a way that I see fit. And if you become a criminal, a threat to me and mine, again, I will defend myself. As to whether that is to your detriment or not, well, that is your problem, not mine. I will remove the threat.

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This is where we disagree. The "law of supply and demand" and the force of competition only work (according to theory) in a free market, which pre-supposes that you have a market to begin with. The indigenous tribe member has a lot of free choices- where to build the hut, how to shape the spear, when to go hunting- but you wouldn't call it capitalism by any stretch of imagination.

And economics only makes sense when you are talking about groups of individuals rather than an isolated person. If everyone is utilizing the resources as they see fit, and not interacting, then it makes little sense to discuss how they are interacting.

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Not only that, but the establishment of a common currency is a requirement for capitalism. How do you pay your workers? In bowling balls? What are they supposed to do- lug those balls to the market and trade with whoever wants bowling balls that day? Even if you had FedEx and Ebay, how do you save for the future? How do you invest?

For practical purposes, capitalism requires roads and currency.

Why not use bowling balls? You point out the disadvantage of bowling balls, but this is really secondary to the issue. We could be talking about cows, in fact cows have been used as currency before.

What is currency? It is simply a medium of exchange, that is all. It is a reference. Instead of trying to figure out the price of cows in terms of chickens or shoes or bobble headed gesha dolls, we price everything in terms of a single comomidty, namely dollars. That way, complicated conversions become a lot easier.

Bowling balls as you note, are too bulky to make a convenient currency. Instead, we could use slips of paper, treebakr, or shiny metal disks. Which have the advantage of being less bulky and that is all.

As for roads, like currency, you are looking at the superficial aspects,

DRAKON

Saturday, October 4, 2003 10:17 AM

I missed one of your questions

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Who do you appeal to if force or fraud is comitted?

Now this gets into politics and shows the relationships or interconnection of politics with economics.

There are several ways you can handle this, some are effective, and some are not.

You can take matters into your own hands, and in fact this does happen a lot more than is realized. You can simply not deal with the person, not buy or sell to him (boycott) or even go so far as slap him around a bit and punish him to make him stop doing it. In the extreme, you can even hang him.

But there is a problem with going too far, the first of which is epistemal. Are you sure the guy is a crook, or could you be wrong?

Another way is the establishment of an agency to determine the case, whether the guy is a crook or not, and met out punishment.

How much power is granted to this agency over the actions of the individual members and how that agency is designed, functions and persons selected for the job, gets into the definition of different political systems.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

-=ZERO=-

Saturday, October 4, 2003 4:09 PM

sad.

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-=ZERO=-

SIGNYM

Saturday, October 4, 2003 9:57 PM

Yes, I know!

SIGNYM

Sunday, October 5, 2003 7:59 AM

You know Drakon, for someone who likes to base his arguments in the material world, you have a habit of ignoring all the "mess" that comes with it:

the necessity of safe roads for markets

the need for currency

the conflict between my property rights and your
right to breathe

the framework of property laws underpinning the system

Rather than being a system that resulted from the development of surplus and trade around which laws were constructed, to you capitalism is pure individual ownership, free of economic, technological, and social development. In fact, you sound like a dyed-in-the-wool idealist when it comes to capitalism- if only we could ignore all those DETAILS that detract from it's pure essence.

But, after that proking thought, I need to toddle off to bed. I'll have to continue this later!

SUCCATASH

Sunday, October 5, 2003 8:54 AM

So, we all agree, right? Bush sucks?

RAZZA

Sunday, October 5, 2003 11:57 AM

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Originally posted by Succatash:

So, we all agree, right? Bush sucks?

No actually we don't, but I suspect you don't really care what others think anyway, so why ask?

"Keep Flying!"

RAZZA

Sunday, October 5, 2003 12:29 PM

First, I want to say that I've enjoyed the discussions between you two for some time now. It's rare, unfortunately, to see two such intelligent folks who disagree so strongly share their beliefs so civilly. Thank you both for keeping it so civil!

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Originally posted by SignyM:
You know Drakon, for someone who likes to base his arguments in the material world, you have a habit of ignoring all the "mess" that comes with it:

the necessity of safe roads for markets
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I'm not sure I agree that safe roads are necessary for markets. I lived in the third world for a couple of years and there were some pretty unsafe roads where I was living, especially during the rainy season. It didn't seem to put a stop the weekly market day, however. Roads plagued with bandits would certainly open a booming business for potential caravan guards and might promote capitalism is this security sector of the economy. I will grant that unsafe roads are undesirable for market expansion and growth, but not are not necessarily essential.

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the need for currency
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I think this depends greatly on your definition of currency. If you mean the use of a standard medium, sanctioned by some governing body, then I think you overvalue the concept of currency. Capitalism does not require such a rigid form of exchange. Barter was around millenia before hard currency and I suspect it will be around in some form or another for a long time.

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the conflict between my property rights and your right to breathe
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Not sure what you are getting at here. Drakon was promoting the "Golden Rule" of property rights. If you would claim ownership of the air I breathe, you would have to back that up with some kind of force, and in return be prepared to meet any force I would place in opposition to your claim. In short if you don't want me claiming your air, don't try to claim mine. Are you trying to make that point that air is "communal property"? I think that bares some more discussion certainly and is a good question!

Hope you two don't mind me entering the discussion, its been fun just watching from the sidelines, thougt it would be more fun to enter the fray.

"Keep Flying!"

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DRAKON

Sunday, October 5, 2003 3:48 PM

Grin.

I don't ignore the "mess", but I do see it as less "messy" than any other system available or thought of. Again, it boils down, to either you make your choices as to how to dispose of your property, or someone else does.

Besides which, what the heck have I been saying? I have not ignored any mess, but have addressed and faced each and every question, or potential "mess" you have brought up.

You don't know me, and for the most part, my existence does not affect you in any material way. Now because of that, you are incapable of making my economic decisions for me. You are not me and it is my life that is at stake, not yours.

If you screw up, I recieve the direct effect. Maybe you are affected later on down the road, indirectly, but that does me little good. You don't know me, nor can you know me. And that alone renders you incompetent at making my decision, deciding what I do with my property.

Roads: What about a world in which there is no solid ground for roads. It is not the road that are necessary, it is a means of travel. This can be accomplished by boats, airplanes, submarines, starships, etc. Again it is markets, not the superficial things that facilitate those markets.

And really when you get down to it, all a market is, is a bunch of folk who gather together to trade goods. It does not matter what those goods are, (in the absrtact), what marks it as a capitalistic system is whether some agency coerces the traders, or not.

Currency: You seem to be under the false assumption that currency is somehow a "real thing" instead of simply an idea. Remove the goods and services you can exchange for currency (help me, I am channeling Anya), currency is worthless. Currency makes things easier, and different things have been used as a common medium of exchange, like cows, or sea shells, or giant stone wheels, or shiny metal disks that other than the fact that it is pretty, has no other pratical use.

The only reason why a piece of colored paper has value, and the only reason why folks are willing to give up their own property for those is because they and many other act "as if" it is valuable. Because folks act in such a manner, it does have value, namely the value of goods and services that can be exchanged.

How many chickens = a cow? Or how many goats, shoes, baskets, etc. = 1 cow? Its kind of a hard question to figure out. But if you convert all these various items into dollars, use the price in currency, then the problem becomes a lot easier.

Conflict of property rights: Again, you need to go back and look at what I wrote about negative and positive rights. I have already explained that property rights are negative rights. That they impart an obligation or responsiblity on the other. You right to ownership, means I am not allowed to interfere.

My right to ownership means you are not allowed to interfere with my decision as to how to utilize or dispose of my property. In other words, take the above statement and swap the "me" and "My" and "you" or "yours", swap the players around and you end up with two symmetrical statements.

Because of the symmetrical nature of the statements, reciprical agreements can be arraigned, and both parties benefit by observing those limitiations on our own actions. It is that exact benefit that is the whole purpose of arraigning the limitations in the first place.

If you want the concept of property rights respected in your case, you are left with observing them in others. You can ignore those rights of others, but that has quite different consequences than respecting them.

And it appears this is exactly what you are arguing for, the freedom from consequences or responsibility for your own actions. This makes little sense, as the whole purpose of taking an action (or inaction) is because one wants to bring those consequences about. What is the point of observing rights if it gains no benefit for the observer?

Just so you can live like a king while the rest of us suffer? How does that benefit me?

In short, again, rather than ignoring details,

DRAKON

Sunday, October 5, 2003 3:56 PM

Not even a little bit. Thanks for joining in.

I have to admit that it is pleasure to discuss these kind of subjects with folks in a civil atmosphere. SignyM has been a gentleman (or woman, gender is hard to convey over the net, not that it matters really. Brains is brains.) I have tried to do the same.

I see these discussion as part of an epistemal process, a means of figuring out what the "right" answers, the best system of concepts, rules, rights and laws that will work best at achieving the means that such items are meant to create.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"