Hugo

The difference is that no citizens have an effect upon the mafia, whereas only a few citizens have an effect upon the state (for instance, the current federal government is ruling against the wishes of 63% of the electorate). Even if the Liberal party had a 99% majority, that does not vindicate them at all. No popular mandate is sufficient to allow violations of human rights. Hitler's popular mandate did not excuse his atrocious regime. All individuals and institutions will generally act in their own self-interest. This is normally not a problem, except when an institution becomes a monopoly. The state monopolises law, the judicial system and the initiation of aggression. To this end, the state almost invariably violates human rights to further its own ends. For example, the Liberal government continues to violate property rights in the form of taxation (for taxation is nothing more than forcible expropriation of private property under threat of violence) in order to further its own continued power.

First off, if you separate refiner and retailer the consumer will pay a higher price. Right now there's only one place to make a profit: at the pump. At every other stage in the process the oil stays in the same hands. However, once separated, the refiner has to sell to the retailer for a profit, and the retailer will have to recompense himself from the consumer, and pump prices will go up. Secondly, if you really want to know why gas prices are so high, realise that 40-50% of the gas price is tax. According to the CAA, government rakes in about $10bn in gasoline taxes but only a "very small percentage" is reinvested in road construction and highway development. Basically, this problem is that people like Maplesyrup don't want to put their money where their mouths are. The reason gas prices are so high is because people are clamouring for the government to pump money into all sorts of programs, but the government doesn't have any money of its own, and when the government comes knocking they complain and whine that somebody else should pick up the tab. MJ Erwin & Associates and Petro-Canada Refining & Marketing Profit - Audited Financials has stated that, of total gasoline prices, only about 3% is profit. In 2003, on average, 17% went to refining and marketing, 37% to crude costs, and 43% to taxation leaving a measly 3%.

Where do you see a conflict of interest and what are you hoping will be accomplished?

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This is not true. For instance, Dalton McGuinty raised taxes in Ontario, after he promised not to. Nobody agreed to this tax raise, it was never part of his electoral platform. Nevertheless, because McGuinty says it is so, if you dare disagree with this contract that McGuinty has forced you into, he will confiscate your property and throw you in jail. This is not the "will of the people." What it amounts to is extortion. Government's authority stems not from the will of the people - which rapidly changes, as McGuinty's approval ratings have shown - but from men with guns, judges, hangmen and other state servants who have the authority to use violence and violate liberty in the name of the government. Tell me: 1) What regulation you are talking about 2) What assets 3) What growth 4) What your control group is for a start. Visa. Do you recall that? You went through and highlighted bits of it, so I assume you read it. Furthermore, I'd also ask you to consider that contracts predate contract law by a long time. If the market could not regulate itself in the event of breach of contract, we would have no contract law. Basically, all that has happened is the state has given its blessing to these arbitrations. If there were no state, there would be no question of approval, and they would happen anyway. Massive loss of business would be a negative outcome, I'm sure you would agree. There is no specific penalty, however, the threat of losing customers and being put out of business by a competitor who has more respect for his customers is a good incentive for a bank to adhere to arbitration. Furthermore, should the bank break the deal it can then be sued by the other party (as it agreed to binding arbitration and then violated it), and if it doesn't meet the terms of that lawsuit it can be sued again. The snowballing outstanding debt will massively damage the bank's credit rating and stock value (yes, businesses have credit ratings too), and the accumulating lawsuits will put off customers of all kinds. Alright. Let's back up a minute and clarify. You originally said, on page 5 of this thread, that regulation of the economy was a sound idea. I believed you meant government regulation, because that's what people usually mean when they talk about economic regulation, and you seemed to confirm this when you provided your first example, which said: Then you went on to say: And then: The differences I am getting at are that the state initiates violence to enforce its laws, has a ruling class separate from the general populace, and has a monopoly on "legitimate" force to do its bidding. Communities such as I am describing do not use violence except (possibly) in response to violence, do not have a ruling class but instead are composed of the populace themselves, and do not have a monopoly on the use of force since they have no independent enforcers of their own and rely, should force be necessary, on the populace. When such a community breaks those rules, then you would be right, and such a community would have become a state, for example, with the creation of a ruling class, the creation of a standing army or police force that monopolises the use of force, and so forth. That's what I'm in the process of doing, I hope.

A government is an association of individuals which has granted itself arbitrary and ostensibly legitimate power over other individuals, power which will be enforced by violence. No other type of association does that, so governments are unique in human organisations. Organised crime gangs would be a close parallel, but they do not have legal recognition, and they compete with each other within a geographical area, so it remains close and not exact. I already told you that wouldn't be sufficient. Justify your point or give it up. No. The government does not have to be involved. The market does a fine job of enforcing contract law by way of the self-creating penalties I already listed. What I am stating is that breach of contract creates its own penalties. That cannot be, because they are only incurred if the transaction is not carried out. The "consequences" of breach of contract are "penalties" because they do not depend upon the immutable laws of the universe, but upon the arbitrary laws of mankind. For instance, I jump in the air, I fall down again. That's a consequence, it cannot be changed. But if I break a contract with you, there's only a penalty for me if we assume certain rules (e.g. that you will have a process of redress, that fraud and violence are wrong, etc). We can change those rules. For instance, we can say that you will have no process of redress because I have a gun and will shoot you if you try, and we can say that I am Pharaoh and am thus entitled to use violence against you. The rules are changed, there is no penalty, so it was not a consequence when there was a penalty. A lot of banks have now gone over to private arbitration for Visa and Mastercard accounts. On the back of statements, account holders now might find an advisory of the fact that they may not file a class-action suit or bring any dispute to public court, if their bank has done so (Citigroup has, for instance). In this private arbitration a private judge, paid by both parties, mediates the dispute. This has been done since the US Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that private arbitration could settle commercial disputes and is becoming increasingly popular. You'll find a lot of credit brokers and so forth who will ask you to agree in advance to private arbitration as part of your contract with them. The enforcement of this arbitration is also private. If the account holder is found wrong and does not fulfill the terms of the arbitration, he will find his credit rating plummeting, for instance. If the bank is found wrong and does not redress the account holder, the penalty will be bad publicity and the resulting loss of business that accompanies it, again, for example. Are you seriously telling me you can't tell the difference between the concepts of "community" and "state"? Here's a key difference. A state arbitrarily dispenses law in a given area, brooks no competition and uses violence or the threat of violence to enforce the law. A community does not. What if I say "he is simply right"? You are not debating, you are bickering. Prove him wrong. This is a recurring problem for you, you're big on rhetoric but very scarce with examples, facts and logic. Your one-line replies and petty insults aren't doing you any favours, either.

Big-government conservatives are as bad as big-government leftists, but as I said, minarchists and other small-government leanings are more common amongst the right than the left. I'm aware that I am repeating myself, but it seems that you didn't read my post. Maybe this will be clearer for you.

Here's some food for thought. The Left overwhelmingly favours big government to do its will, be that wealth redistribution, environmental protection or whatever. The thing to remember is that government ultimately can only get anything done through violence or the threat of violence, so what the Left advocates is, basically, the use of violence to further their own ideals. There are many on the Right who would have the government do their bidding too, but overall right-wingers generally prefer a smaller government and more individualism. Personally, I remain highly suspicious of anybody who advocates the use of violence to further their goals.

I just went back over this entire thread and didn't see any links to or citations of any encyclopedia articles from you. If you quoted any you didn't attribute them. Because government exercises arbitrary power, whereas individuals (and the associations they produce) do not. There is always an alternative, a process of redress or a way to avoid the power. Alright, then yet again, I ask you to give me an example. "Insurance" is not sufficient, any more than the word "oppression" is in and of itself a sufficient argument against government. Go ahead and show me an instance where government intervention will produce a Pareto optimality, and make sure you explain it fully while you're at it. Alright, then let me show you the illogic of your argument. According to you, contract law can stipulate no penalty beyond enforcement of the terms of a contract. But in such a case, every contract would be broken. The worst that can happen is that you'll have to fulfil your contract (which would have happened anyway), and the best-case scenario is that the other party wouldn't pursue you or wouldn't win the dispute and you get something for nothing. Basically, your idea of contract law is a game of "heads I win, tails you lose." Contract law works because of penalties. Legal expenses are a penalty exacted against one or both parties to a dispute and so, despite your claim to the contrary, are relevant in this debate. Even bad publicity is a penalty, so contract law is necessarily a negative-welfare situation despite your claim to the contrary. Completely untrue. The VISA system (I notice you tried to skirt around that uncomfortable example) offers a non-state system of rules, which will be arbitrated privately, and the results of that arbitration will be enforced privately. There would also be the example of communities (such as the Amish) who produce their own law and arbitrate and enforce it themselves without state involvement at any level. It is also fallacious to suppose that law and law enforcement necessitates a state. I would suggest reading up on David Friedman who has been arguing for private law for a long time. You can read some here. I don't accept this as an argument. Would you?

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. Please tell me how striking a law completely off the books is "interpreting" that law.

R. v. Morgentaler threw out s.251 of the Criminal Code. R. v. Butler ordered a new trial with a different interpretation of s.163(8) of the Criminal Code. If you want more, I suggest you read the cases. But those two examples completely refute your ignorant allegation, so this debate is over.

You can find a whole list right here.

No, democracy is not government. Government is the exercise of legitimised and institutionalised arbitrary power, which can be done with the trappings of democracy, but which also cannot. This is not true. "Regulation" of the insurance market has created a nightmare. For instance, government has granted car insurance companies a cartel monopoly by stipulating that all drivers must be insured. Because of this government interference, car insurance companies have consumers over a barrel and we have seen the runaway premiums that are a consequence. Explain how government regulation in these fields promotes efficiency. These examples are not a priori knowledge, I dispute the fact that the propriety of government regulation in these fields is self-evident. You assume that legal costs and other ancillary expenses of the dispute do not exist. I also don't see any reason why government arbitration and regulation is better than private arbitration, for example the VISA system. Jerome Auerbach has found that 75% of businesspeople privately arbitrate their commercial disputes. When government is involved in legal cases it is usually not as impartial arbitrator but as plaintiff, prosecutor or defendant. And you are so steeped in the ideology of statism that you cannot see the damage that the state is wreaking. We can play these games all day, but there's no substance behind your words. I have found no economic explanation for the existence of government regulation. It defies all economic fact. The reason for government power is not economic but political, firstly, the tendency of a monolithic institution with arbitrary power to accumulate more power and more influence for itself, and secondly, emotive arguments, for instance, that we should care for the poor, for the environment and so forth and by emotionally loading his arguments, the statist tries to trick us into believing that the best way to protect the poor and the environment is by investing greater power in government to do so, despite the fact that all the empirical evidence points to the contrary. In these cases, it is a fact that price, wage and rent controls create poverty rather than alleviate it and, as August has said, attempts to take communal responsibility for the environment have failed, with degrees varying according to the collectivism - a moderate failure in North America, a devastating failure in the USSR and the PRC.

Excellent. We shall all do a lot better without the disservices of state regulation. Regarding the Kyoto accord, it's all very amusing. I recall Plato's Critias, where he spends ages rambling on about how Athenian industry is raping the land, causing soil erosion and reducing Greece to a desolate wasteland, and then Tertullian, who in the 2nd Century campaigned against rampant over-population and the rape of Earth's resources and advocated a withdrawal to a simpler and more ecologically sound life. 1800 years later, the Apocalypse seems to have gone out to lunch. So, let me get this straight. A bunch of governments have decided that governments need to have more power and more tax money, and you don't smell a rat?

Well, in a cinema, I can choose not to go in. Please tell me where I can go, not pay taxes, and not receive government services. To me it's a proper sense of "coercion." How can I give my consent to anything before my birth? Once again, if you tell me how I can opt out of government I'll do it! About what? The Hell's Angels or the government?

I never agreed to submit to the government of either Paul Martin or Dalton McGuinty, but yet they exercise arbitrary power over me, against my will, expropriate my rightful property on a daily basis, and make decisions affecting my life that I would never consent to. I don't believe that is true either. Government is and always has been a weapon that some groups aim at other groups. The "co-operation" we have under government is coerced and unwilling. A majority of Canadians never agreed to "co-operate" with or under the Liberal government, but they are forced to anyway under threat of arrest and jail. What if I don't want to pay for the fire department? What if, in my view, the risk of my property catching fire is so negligible that it does not make financial sense for me to pay dues for the fire department? Do I have a choice? No. August, I would challenge you to "think outside the box", as Maplesyrup might say, and actually think about what a world without government would be.

So we would hope. Unfortunately, government is not, never has been and never can be impartial, so all government ends up doing is benevolence towards some drawn from abuse of others, after having deducted a handsome stipend for itself, of course. I disagree. What we have right now is a very strong accumulation of arbitrary power in a small number of individuals and institutions i.e. government. As the free market prevents economic monopoly, so would a stateless society prevent political monopoly. Right now, political power is invested in a group of individuals who will always be operating against the wishes of somebody, and who can exercise arbitrary power against anybody. The only economic abuse that occurs does so with the blessing of the state. A free market relies upon voluntary transactions and, in such a system, it is impossible for anybody to be abused. For an analogy, in order to do violence upon you I must control your movements. If I am powerless to control your movements I cannot inflict violence upon you because you can simply avoid me.

It was really a failure of society and of foreign pressure. The Habsburgs had too many wars to fight on too many fronts, which bankrupted them, and their continual failure to perform necessary social reform (ending the mercantilist families, the power of the church, etc) which led to several rebellions and riots. Alright. What you are advocating here is government-sanctioned theft and extortion. I shall illustrate. Let's say there's 101 equal plots of land, I own one of them and a railway company needs to buy them for a new railroad. If 100 plots of land are bought up, the marginal value of my land has increased 100 times. If the government forbids me to sell at this price, interfering in a free economic transaction, and forces me to sell at the old price, the government has robbed me of my property. My rights have been violated. What has happened is that the government has stolen the marginal value of 100 plots of land from me and given it to this railroad company (by forcing me to sell to them at the old price). By what right does the government steal what belongs to me and give it to a railroad company? Rubbish. I'll cite Bombardier as an example again. You should note that in America and in Britain the periods of greatest industrial and economic growth exactly coincided with the periods of minimal government interference in the economy. Government is evil and has no rightful role to play in anything. I defy you to give a definition of "taxation" that does not also describe high-minded robbery. You sometimes meet good people, and you sometimes find good corporations, but there has never been a good government.

Pure capitalism would require the abolition of nation-states, for one thing. But we should strive to get as close as possible. No. They would develop in their own right and create their own wealth. The situation you see in the third world right now is, economically, quite similar to our own at around the time of the industrial revolution, give or take perhaps a century. As capitalism generates increased wealth, increased leisure and better living conditions, their condition will constantly improve as long as they adhere to the free market. World capitalism is inevitable, it is the only system that actually works, and when we reach such a point we may be in a position to pursue pure capitalism and complete liberty. Murray Rothbard wrote about this in A Future of Peace and Capitalism which is well worth reading. There is an online copy here.

No, I'm saying that government should have no hand at all. If the government took no stance at all the plants would get built if they were needed. There is absolutely no need for government intervention in any industry except those which government itself creates. A truly free economy has never existed but if you look at periods of history where we have come close, for instance, America for about 20 years post-Revolution and between 1840 and 1860, industrial development, innovation and trade all boomed without any government input at all.

It depends upon whether they have arbitrary power or whether they derive power from individuals who can choose to empower them or to not. But you have not proven that. I have been back over this entire thread, to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I cannot find any proof from you of this. All I find is unjustified statements like "Information and transactional inequity are known to hinder market growth." The only two examples you have given were insurance and traffic regulation. Both of these were attacked and you did not defend them. Interference in insurance, for instance, can be demonstrated to develop higher premiums and worse value. Imagine that car insurance is extended to cover maintenance. Everybody now starts getting their oil changed every 1000km and changing their tires instead of rotating them, because they don't associate a cost with these services anymore. Premiums go up in obvious response. People complain and the government "regulates" it by creating insurance-aid, for instance, for the poor who now cannot afford car insurance. Now people are literally getting car maintenance for free. They get even more of it. Car garages start price gouging because the government picks up the tab and people no longer ask, "how much is it?" Oil changes cost $500. The insurance-aid becomes prohibitively expensive and the government raises taxes to cover the bills. People start complaining that insurance-aid doesn't cover enough and should cover nonessential items like hubcaps. After the government "regulation", premiums are through the roof, garages are mired in inefficiency and waste, taxes have been raised, in short, we have a monstrous problem, everybody is paying more and getting less, and the only viable solution is for government to undo everything it just did and keep at arm's length in the future. You also mentioned traffic regulations. I refer you to Germany's autobahns. If you feel you have a better example, or wish to refine your earlier ones and be specific, please feel free. Such as what? Oh? Then how is it enforced? Management includes micromanagement and macromanagment as sub-groups, therefore when I say regulation is management, I mean micromanagement and macromanagement. If you are regulating the economy or a part thereof you are attempting to manage it towards a pre-determined goal, in your case, efficiency. But it does not, and I already went over this. Because an institution exists does not prove that the theory behind it is correct. Remember my example of absolute monarchy? And yet, you have repeatedly failed to prove it. I refuse to move further in this debate until you can definitively prove to me that government regulation of the economy demonstrably produces, or even that it can demonstrably produce, greater efficiency. Until then we are arguing with a premise that has not been established, so any conclusion we may come to will necessarily be flawed.

The state. The judicial, legislative and executive. Those with arbitrary power. Those who derive their power from themselves rather than from others. You know what government is. Don't obfuscate. And why is this a good reason to add another? Why do you? Your idea of contractural law, enforced by the state, uses exactly the same method, the penalties just differ. Regulation is management. You already told me you were not talking about macromanagement, so I infer that you are talking about micromanagement. If you are not talking about management you are not talking about regulation. Sure, but it cannot, so that's the end of that discussion. The free market offers the positive-welfare option, i.e. the promise of reward for trade and production. Government regulation does not promise reward (at least, not in the long run, and not to everybody), it promises punishment.

Whose lives? What harm?

I don't understand. You cannot refute my facts, you cannot dispute my logic and yet you still cannot bring yourself to agree with me. Cast off your prejudices. Yes, that's capitalism. To believe it is impossible is like the man who claimed, in the 1870s, that there was no need for a patent office because everything that could be invented has been invented. No, it makes everyone richer. Microsoft is not concerned with the computer market, only the OS part. False. Microsoft makes more revenue from Office than from Windows. Also false. Bill Gates was a latecomer to the computer market and the desktop market. IBM and DEC had been there long before him. Henry Ford was a latecomer to the car industry, men like Renault and Benz were building cars for sale long before he. Dell was very much a latecomer to the PC market. Trump was very much a latecomer to the real estate market. Companies are individuals. Already done. That's self-contradictory. Multiplying is creating from nothing. If I have two apples, and I multiply them to four (not acquire, multiply), where have those extra apples come from? The state holds primary responsibility for every monopoly in history, from the East India Company to Canada's power generation.

I disagree with every word. First off, a plastics company is likely to bring greater returns than Google, so the IPO would be correspondingly higher. In the capitalist system, if you are proposing an enterprise that offers a return on investment you will find financial backing no matter how much you need. Secondly, why does the government have to be involved in land expropriation? If land is privately held, then the prospective buyer can simply buy the land in the free market. Thirdly, government does not need to coordinate multiple firms. Plenty of projects have been developed by the coordination of multiple firms without any government intervention. Where there is mutual benefit, firms will cooperate. This is what happens when you have outsourcing. Do you think Ford makes all of the parts in a car from scratch? Of course not. There are literally dozens of companies involved in the production of a car and they have all come together for a mutual profit without any government intervention. Spain's main problem was that it was bankrupted by a succession of wars, wars that, thanks to new military methods, had become more costly than ever before. It paid for these wars in profoundly anti-capitalist ways, for instance, raising new taxes, borrowing and hoping for windfalls from the Americas rather than trashing mercantilist economics and developing an economic underpinning to supply the military machine. The Counter-Reformation weakened the economy and was very anti-capitalist. Economic incentives all revolved around a benefactor in either the church or the nobility. Labour was monopolised by guilds, for example, the Mesta (sheep-owners guild) retarded the development of agriculture. This is all mercantilist. You can tell because it deliberately concentrates wealth in families, which is a tell-tale sign of mercantilist policy. Yes, it is wasteful. Guns and butter. What you are saying is that since the influx of capital into the US finances the debt, an influx of foreign capital is wrong. This is fallacious. It is not the influx that is wrong but the debt. Yes. Both the examples you listed are profoundly anti-capitalist because there is an element of coercion in both and capitalism can only involve voluntary transactions. You are begging the question. You have not shown that modifying trade flows and controlling outsourcing will reign in current account deficits. It's not the best method of raising capital. Shares gives a much greater dispersion of risk. Like Bombardier, which now needs endless corporate welfare to even stay afloat? The government has no business fostering any kind of industry. Industries will develop under the right market conditions, and if those conditions do not exist and the government attempts to develop the industry anyway such industry will inevitably fail.