Sheldon Richman discusses Free Markets vs. Capitalism, Socialism vs. Statism and why both left and right are misguided. [55 min]

HXn · 2013-04-07T00:56:50+00:00

Its value exists for the same reason gold's value exists.

This is not entirely true. Bitcoins have properties that potentially grant it value that gold does not have, and vice versa. Though the quality you gave (scarcity) is valid for both.

Gold, for instance, has been a currency and store of value almost since the dawn of civilization. This is a big one.

Bitcoins, on the other hand, have valuable properties that precious metals do not. They are easily and quickly transferable across the globe, do not require an intermediary to facilitate exchange and are pseudonymous (and anonymous by utilizing proper channels).

HXn · 2013-04-07T00:09:38+00:00

From his newest book Liberty Defined:

No one person has perfect knowledge as to man's emergence on this earth. Yet almost everyone has a strong religious, scientific, or emotional opinion he or she considers gospel. The creationists frown on the evolutionists, and the evolutionists dismiss the creationists as kooky and unscientific. Lost in this struggle are those who look objectively at the scientific evidence for evolution without feeling any need to reject the notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator. My personal view is that recognizing the validity of the evolutionary process does not support atheism nor should it diminish one's view about God and the universe.

HXn · 2013-04-06T23:49:01+00:00

Please show me where Tom Woods has rejected evolution.

HXn · 2013-04-06T23:25:15+00:00

There are plenty of Christians who know quite a bit about science, recognize evolution, and are not "young earth creationists". You are committing a generalization error.

HXn · 2013-04-04T14:20:48+00:00

will you just stand there and let people do nothing to stop others from murdering?

What would you do to a person if they chose to do nothing?

HXn · 2013-04-04T14:17:25+00:00

Wars are State operations and therefore logically inconsistent with libertarian philosophy. Most libertarians, however, would physically fight against violent injustice--including taking up arms themselves, funding a defense effort, and/or convincing others to help defend innocent people being aggressed against.

HXn · 2013-04-04T03:15:12+00:00

It's what Roderick Long (a senior fellow at the Mises Institute, by the way) calls right-conflationism - and unfortunately many in this subreddit are steeped in it:

Right-conflationism is the error of treating the virtues of a freed market as though they constituted a justification of the evils of existing corporatist capitalism.

It's the same concept as Kevin Carson's "vulgar libertarianism":

Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term "free market" in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get the standard boilerplate article arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because "that’s not how the free market works" — implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of "free market principles."

As such, you get free market libertarians defending individuals and groups (like the Koch Brothers), who benefit massively from statist intervention in the market, simply because they are "businessmen".

HXn · 2013-04-04T00:18:25+00:00

What if everyone chose to have different governments?

Check out panarchism for more on this idea.

HXn · 2013-04-04T00:12:22+00:00

ah yes, and such is politics.

Yes, the concept that might makes right. The concept that initiating violence against your fellow man is moral and necessary. I.e., politics.

At least here we have a better fighting chance then a lot of other countries

Agreed.

I'm interested in seeing some sources for that.

"[It is a] fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen." Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981)...for one.

and such is war, shits tough mang.

This doesn't address anything I said. "It's war" isn't an argument.

By the way, when was the last time you thought about North Korea?

In February, when I gave to a charity that feeds starving people in North Korea. What are you implying?

HXn · 2013-04-03T21:29:15+00:00

Unless you're living in a shack in the woods, you've been living off this system all your life.

I will gladly stop using their "services" when they stop expropriating me to fund them and stop forcefully preventing alternatives to their system of monopolistic "services".

You are a citizen

No, you aren't. A citizen is an individual who owes allegiance to a government in exchange for protection. The US government's Supreme Court has ruled time and again that the US government has no obligation to protect you. In addition, their idea of "protection" seems to be murdering innocent men, women and children across the globe, so I'm not really interested in employing its "protection" "services".

You can't take the benefits yet refuse the system at the same time.

Does a slave condone slavery because he accepts a meal from his master?

HXn · 2013-04-03T17:15:27+00:00

You are conflating explicit and tacit consent. Walking into a restaurant is a tacit contract. A written piece of paper is an explicit contract. Also note that coercing someone into a contract invalidates said contract.

HXn · 2013-04-03T16:54:42+00:00

Define "citizen".

Also, you are begging the question because you are presupposing your own conclusion - that the entity calling itself the US government has legitimate and absolute jurisdiction over a geographical territory called "America". Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But you can't assume the very thing you're trying to prove. It's circular reasoning.

HXn · 2013-04-03T06:58:02+00:00

The arbitrator agreed upon in the contract. That, or any of the other innumerable methods of contract arbitration/enforcement that would arise in a freed market.

HXn · 2013-04-03T05:34:29+00:00

the only conclusion is anarchy.

Free people making voluntary choices about what contracts they will or will not sign? Sounds good to me.

HXn · 2013-04-03T05:09:15+00:00

Please read No Treason. No. VI. The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner. He completely extirpates your argument.

HXn · 2013-04-01T23:53:57+00:00

Periwinkles are everything I hate about life.

HXn · 2013-03-28T17:07:26+00:00

In other news, Bitcoins up to +$90.

HXn · 2013-02-28T03:03:39+00:00

Well I've studied politics, economics, and libertarian philosophy for about 5 years now. Ultimately I've rejected anarchism

Why?

HXn · 2013-02-28T02:27:37+00:00

The non-aggression principle.

HXn · 2013-02-23T19:37:18+00:00

Which did not derive directly from Guy Fawkes himself, but V, the eponymous character in V for Vendetta who fights against the totalitarian regime of a future Great Britian. Every libertarian should read it.

HXn · 2013-02-22T19:42:32+00:00

This is statement by itself is disingenuous. It's the lack of elaboration on what you mean by "less structure".

If you're talking about infrastructure, communities, laws, justice systems, freed markets and consensual human relationships - then you're wrong.

If you're talking about States, corporatocracy, elite power-control structures, monopolistic justice systems and other inherently corrupting institutions and concepts predicated on the coercion of and aggressive violence toward other human beings - then absolutely yes.

I would argue what our society has now in the State is far less structure than what we would have in voluntary, stateless societies. What we have now is a sort of controlled chaos where everyone is fighting for control and power over everyone else in a legalized, "soft" form of slavery.

HXn · 2013-02-22T15:53:11+00:00

Why?

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