Christian anarcho-capitalism

Sorry, can't do that. See your post on not voting....

2008-12-05T11:54:00.000Z

Sorry, can't do that. See your post on not voting.

Stan, read closely how I stated that abolition sho...

2008-11-13T15:59:00.000Z

Stan, read closely how I stated that abolition should occur. What would would be Biblically wrong about telling people, "You can withdraw now, and form your own government if you want. Or you can stay with us. You can change your mind later, too."?

On a personal level, isn't that exactly what God said to do in the most sacred human covenant of all, marriage? [I Corinthians 7:15]

No, Stan, I am not calling for anarchy by another ...

2008-11-13T14:00:00.000Z

No, Stan, I am not calling for anarchy by another name. I am calling for anarchy explicitly. Moreover, I believe God calls for it, as well. He commands us to submit to government. That does not mean we are authorized to encourage the use of force which is at the heart of government.

Umm, what you are calling for David is called anar...

2008-11-13T10:33:00.000Z

Umm, what you are calling for David is called anarchy by another name. Unfortunately, you are also going against the express will of God, who ordained human government and called for us to pray for those over us, not abolish them.

A.B. Dada, I'd be most grateful if you could provi...

2008-11-06T08:27:00.000Z

A.B. Dada, I'd be most grateful if you could provide a link here to your 2006 election day article, which had a title similar to "Millions of Americans aggress against me yesterday, legally." I couldn't find it while searching. :)

I also believe that voting is a prejudice act. Th...

2008-11-05T15:21:00.000Z

I also believe that voting is a prejudice act. Thanks for this post, David.

Stefan ... honored to have you visit.

2008-11-05T04:59:00.000Z

Stefan ... honored to have you visit.

you might want to check this video out - powerful ...

2008-11-04T21:07:00.000Z

you might want to check this video out - powerful stuff! the truth about voting... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbBItLemsM

You're right, seiner. I didn't understand who the...

2008-07-03T16:57:00.000Z

You're right, seiner. I didn't understand who the victims were when I read the original news story.

Many of the points I made hold true; they just weren't relevant to the story that set me off writing that day.

Hi, I'm from South Africa and I came across this p...

2008-07-02T13:41:00.000Z

Hi, I'm from South Africa and I came across this post of you by chance. I am having a bit of trouble understanding the point you are trying to make.

Local black South Africans attacked foreigners from elsewhere in Africa - mostly people from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Nigeria. There were no people of European decent involved in either side of the conflict.

Where does the whole Anglo-Saxonism fit into this?

Yes, Keri, we are enthusiastic homeschoolers, alth...

2008-05-22T21:01:00.000Z

Yes, Keri, we are enthusiastic homeschoolers, although at this point in time our children are younger than what most people consider "school age." My wife was 100% homeschooled. I was public schooled, and while I received a good education academically, the result was an extreme bias in favor of believing that existing government solutions are right and that solving problems with government is right. I don't want that for my children!!

I am presently reading "Ancient Rome." I am curiou...

2008-05-21T15:55:00.000Z

I am presently reading "Ancient Rome." I am curious if you homeschool?

What is your view on taking up arms against a gove...

2008-02-05T02:25:00.000Z

What is your view on taking up arms against a government gone bad? Is it permissable for a Christian to do or, in light of Romans and 2 Peter, should Christians only use non-violence against governments?

jdavidb is correct.This fallacy that private corpo...

2007-12-04T21:19:00.000Z

jdavidb is correct.

This fallacy that private corporations will rule the world and make you their slave is bogus, to put it kindly. Only governments have that power to monopolize and COERCE cooperation with their system via force. In the society he describes, people will be free to negotiate with whomever they want and competition will ultimately provide a better service. Ultimately, corporations won't be able to have this 'power' you speak of unless private individuals voluntarily give them this power, which can be revoked at any time their needs are no longer satisfied; government coerces people into accepting their power, and is distinguished in being the only entity able to do so.

One issue you missed that is currently either unav...

2007-12-03T18:05:00.000Z

One issue you missed that is currently either unavailable, or not financially viable, is the option to take fraud insurance on a transaction. It also makes sense to take negative outcome insurance (which I believe is illegal in the U.S.) against both fraud and mistakes.

If you feel you might be defrauded in a transaction, you can purchase insurance for the amount you're fearful of risking. The insurer would then rate the person/company you're buying from, and offer insurance at a certain price (or not at all, if the risk is too high).

This would work for any product or service, including medical operations.

Yes, we do have SOME negative outcome insurance in the form of extended warranties and certain insurances available, but they're limited in some ways. Some credit card companies also offer minimal "fraud" insurance, but again it isn't available at various levels of need versus risk. It's an all-or-nothing provision because many of us rely on government to tackle fraud, when in fact the market already does a better job.

I was defrauded once a few years ago in a service transaction, and I back-charged the transaction through my credit card company and they paid me back 80% of my costs. It wasn't the best solution, but it worked, and I didn't need to sue anyone. The person who defrauded me lost their merchant account because they defrauded many individuals, so the market solved it fairly efficiently.

To simplify: why would private entities that repla...

2007-12-03T15:19:00.000Z

To simplify: why would private entities that replace a government have a tendency to get huge and ungainly and corrupt, when anyone would have the right to start an honest competitor which would compete them into the dust?

It's not the same thing if done privately instead ...

2007-12-03T15:18:00.000Z

It's not the same thing if done privately instead of by government. The difference is that if the government fails to serve you, you can't go contract with an alternate provider. In a real-world system of freedom, you could go deal with someone else to take care of you. The difference is that government, as we know it, is a monopoly by definition. In a true free market, you make money and continue to exist by serving people. Not so in our monopoly system, where you continue to exist and make money no matter what.

The problem is not apathy. The problem is centralism. We're not supposed to force all of these decisions to be made for all people in one place. It does not and can not work. I agree that apathetic idiots should lose the right to vote, along with non-apathetic people, and people who are not idiots. Nobody should have the right to vote. Nobody should possess the power that government grants through democracy: the power to control your neighbor (other than the simple power to protect your rights from violation by your neighbor). This is immmoral, and what's more, it's damaging and causes all of the problems we see with the system.

It all works out to exactly the same thing, no mat...

2007-12-03T07:24:00.000Z

It all works out to exactly the same thing, no matter what your form of government or worldview is.

The US government is huge and ungainly and corrupt. If you replace the US government with a privately held corporation you have exactly the same problems, exactly the same tendency to get huge and ungainly and corrupt, minus the illusion of democracy.

The real problem is that most people are apathetic idiots, and the average American is getting more apathetic and more stupid. The closest thing to a solution is for apathetic idiots to lose their right to influence the situation, i.e., in our current situation, their right to vote. But most of the non-apathetic non-idiots won't feel this is right, and most of the rest of them rely on the apathetic idiots to get their side more power.

It all boils down to the same thing, no matter what machinations you choose.

Who cares? Honestly, is it a big deal if Jesus is ...

2007-10-20T05:24:00.000Z

Who cares? Honestly, is it a big deal if Jesus is a socialist or not?

Thanks to Mookie for allowing me to have the final...

2007-08-26T16:26:00.000Z

Thanks to Mookie for allowing me to have the final, and most convincing, words:

So you and I wash up on an island. Before you wake up from the ordeal, I go around and pee on all the coconut and fruit trees, claiming all the foodstuffs on the island. Including the materials you would need to make a fishing pole. Being a capitalist, you must respect my claim to all this property.

Not really. Anarcho-capitalists believe that the person who discovers land, and maintains it, owns that land. Just planting a flag is not enough -- you also have to go through with keeping it up and useful. Sure, there are side notes regarding nature habitats and the like, but in general, after you're done urinating on the foodstuffs, once you leave it natural I am free to maintain it and recoup the benefits and proceeds of my labors.

Because I own everything (sucks to be you), you'll have to go through me to get anything on the island. What I'll probably end up doing is make you pick all the food, take the largest cut for myself (I did bother to pee on all the trees, after all), and then give you the not so delicious parts that are left over.

How would you do this? By using force? In a tiny island, killing the other person would likely rob you of future benefits of my labor, so you may be sealing your own death. This is also generally true in large markets -- reducing the population gets rid of an individual who might buy, or who might produce. Also, in a larger market, the risk of being discovered to be a murderer and ruining your future market potential is great as well.

Of course, while you are doing all the hard work, I'll be training my army of monkeys to ensure I remain the owner of everything on the island.

And while you do that, who will be getting your food? Your monkeys?

And in one fell swoop, we have 1) restriction of access, 2) exploitative labor as a result of this restriction of access, 3) the formation of a small hierarchy of me over you (based on property rights!), and 4) the formation of the state to protect my property. I did pee on it, after all. And now my army of monkeys can help me defend it.

No, what you're doing is creating a government. All governments, especially Progressive ones, do exactly what you just dictated.

This is why anarcho-capitalism is not anarchy. It can never be. This is going to shock you, too, but anarchy, the REAL anarchy, is based on socialism, which to you may sound like an oxymoron. Of course, anarcho-capitalism is by far the more moronic of the oxy. I hope my little example has demonstrated why.

Socialism is government at its highest level. Anarcho-capitalism is voluntary trade for the mutual gain of both parties. There is no trade in socialism, only theft with the penalty of harm or death.

So you and I wash up on an island. Before you wake...

2007-08-25T16:05:00.000Z

So you and I wash up on an island. Before you wake up from the ordeal, I go around and pee on all the coconut and fruit trees, claiming all the foodstuffs on the island. Including the materials you would need to make a fishing pole. Being a capitalist, you must respect my claim to all this property.

Because I own everything (sucks to be you), you'll have to go through me to get anything on the island. What I'll probably end up doing is make you pick all the food, take the largest cut for myself (I did bother to pee on all the trees, after all), and then give you the not so delicious parts that are left over.

Of course, while you are doing all the hard work, I'll be training my army of monkeys to ensure I remain the owner of everything on the island.

And in one fell swoop, we have 1) restriction of access, 2) exploitative labor as a result of this restriction of access, 3) the formation of a small hierarchy of me over you (based on property rights!), and 4) the formation of the state to protect my property. I did pee on it, after all. And now my army of monkeys can help me defend it.

This is why anarcho-capitalism is not anarchy. It can never be. This is going to shock you, too, but anarchy, the REAL anarchy, is based on socialism, which to you may sound like an oxymoron. Of course, anarcho-capitalism is by far the more moronic of the oxy. I hope my little example has demonstrated why.

This is why I asked you:

"If you and I were on an island, would we lay claim to the means of survival? If so, how would we then determine who does what, and how much each of us gets?"

Your answer was way off, addressing what you thought to be something else.

Oh, and in regards to this post about Hillary - she is not a progressive. She is of the corporate elite, the ones that run this country because they own the means of production.

There's a good article on her in the PROGRESSIVE magazine The Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman

I'm done trolling now. Later, anarcho-posers.

If you and I were on an island, would we lay claim...

2007-08-20T20:07:00.000Z

If you and I were on an island, would we lay claim to the means of survival? If so, how would we then determine who does what, and how much each of us gets?

You determine it based on what your needs are, through bartering. If you are good at something, and I am good at something else, we do what we need to do to survive first, and whatever is left over we can trade with each other to acquire the other products/services.

If you think I am asking for too many of your coconuts in trade for a hut I'd build for you, you would withdraw from that particular barter and maybe build it yourself. If I thought you wanted to give me too few coconuts in exchange for the dry wood I harvested, I'd withdraw from the exchange and go find my own coconuts.

There is no "fair" value for labor in any market -- the value for the labor is set by what others need, and what others are willing to pay for. Would you pay someone $100 to point out weeds in your lawn? Of course not, you can do it yourself. Would you pay someone $100 to build a car for you? Absolutely -- but so would everyone else, so that $100 would quickly rise until the person building cars found the maximum income for their talents, whereas the "weed pointing" guy might settle for $1, or there might not be any market at all.

That's the beauty of the market economy -- people's talents don't go to waste, and if they find they aren't getting enough for their talents, they are free to learn new ones and market themselves again.

Unfortunately, I didn't find a suitable answer to ...

2007-08-17T14:10:00.000Z

Unfortunately, I didn't find a suitable answer to this question:

How would we determine how we labour and how much each of us gets?

Maybe I should elaborate.

In the early days of the church in Europe, the bible was in Latin. Not everyone could read, let alone Latin. People knew enough about the theology to know that their souls were in grave danger - they just lacked access to the means to save themselves. Fortunately, the church had a nice bunch of people that could read Latin. And, even more fortunately, the church only asked for 10% of one's income to receive the salvation they desired. By restricting access to something that everybody needed, they were able to capitalize and form a monopoly on their skills.

If you and I were on an island, would we lay claim to the means of survival? If so, how would we then determine who does what, and how much each of us gets?

Mookie, Christianity is a [i]voluntary[/i] hierarc...

2007-08-17T02:37:00.000Z

Mookie, Christianity is a [i]voluntary[/i] hierarchy. Christians are never permitted to compel other people to submit to God. In fact, the Bible specifically forbids them to do so.

Under anarchy, you can form whatever social structure you want. Want to put together a socialist commune? Great! Just don't compel other people to be members; only accept members who agree to the terms. Everybody who doesn't agree has the right to go be a part of some other structure of their own design with other willing participants. This is actually just what the Declaration of Independence says: "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Anarchists just go further and say that it's wrong to build such a structure (government) and deny other people the right to do the same, as seems best to them.

Christianity fits nicely into this. If you want to be a Christian, you can. Otherwise, you don't, and nobody makes you. You're permitted to try to persuade people to be or not be a Christian, but not to force them either way. Christians can band together and set up their church how they think they are supposed to, and accept willing participants who are willing to submit to the terms, and the worst they can do to somebody who doesn't keep the church's ways is to put them out of the church. This is exactly the maximum penalty a church is permitted to impose according to I Corinthians 5.

As for anarchy being compatible with capitalism, don't think of state capitalism, where governments befriend big business. Just think of the freedom for private individuals to spend their money where and how they please. If individuals don't have this freedom, then you don't have anarchy. And of course obviously if a state is controlling it, then you don't have anarchy. This is true if the state takes money and rights away from people to benefit business, and it is also true if the state takes money and rights away from people to form socialism. Forms of "anarchy" that want to impose socialism on people are definitely not anarchy. They are just a different kind of archy.

You can find a lot more if you Google for anarcho-capitalism.

I do not want a battle. But what I was wondering w...

2007-08-16T23:55:00.000Z

I do not want a battle. But what I was wondering was, how would we determine how we labour and how much each of us gets?

I agree -- but the other guy might decide to expel their energy fighting rather than utilizing his talents as best as he could.

When you have a "market" of only 2 individuals, and you have a limited supply of raw materials, you have to do what you can do best and hope that you have talents the other person needs.

We can assume there are more than 2 coconut trees, and that the island has enough land for both people to at least lay down without being on top of each other. If one party or both don't want to work together to try to benefit both, then going to separate parts of the island and doing you best makes sense. If you end up finding a talent, say coconut harvesting, and the other person finds a talent, say hut building, you would both have a natural desire to barter for each other talents.

In a larger market, people find the labors that are needed in that market (low supply of labor with a high demand for the product or service) and they'd try to excel or learn that talent. Then they'd use their talent to barter for the talents that other people have excelled at or learned.

There's no need to justify equality in a market -- not everyone is equal. But everyone has a talent, and most everyone (other than the lame, the mentally retarded and SOME eldery) can use those talents to support themselves while attempting to gain new insight into newer talents or added efficiencies in their given talent -- making them worth more bartering power.