Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

[c1ue]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

Have you forgotten the "magical act" called the US Constitution that mandated no Direct taxes? It was in force for ~130 years. Only excise taxes were permitted.

The real "magical act" was the 16th amendment which, along with the Federal Reserve, institutionalized Federal theft and slavery, and destroyed the foundation of the Constitution, rendering it meaningless.

You are either for freedom, or you are against it. It's like pregnancy-- you can't be a "little bit" pregnant, just like you can't be "a little bit" free-- you are either free, or you are not.

Similarly, you are either for Marxism, or you are against it. I don't care what "flavor" of Marxism you like; it's all nihilistic, soul-crushing tyranny.

You are against freedom and against free enterprise, and for crushing the human spirit into nothingness, and sacrificing it on the altar of "practicality", "fairness" or whatever nonsense excuse you make. At least just come out and say it.

My friend, when you cannot answer the direct questions set before you, nor respond to clear examples, then clearly you are merely pushing a personal political agenda.

I've asked you repeatedly how modern society can survive without government action in infrastructure, in regulation, in providing utilities, and so forth, but your only response is to say the Constitution doesn't mandate direct taxes.

Your 'direct tax' comment is also wrong. The Constitution in fact gives the powers to tax to the states and to Congress. The actual full statement is: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

Well, we've got a census. Direct taxes are therefore ok.

Those were failures, yes; but they weren't failures due to private ownership. Firefighting in urban areas was new at the time. I see no reason to believe that public firefighters would have done better. The policies, procedures and resource requirements were still being learned, and the private companies would have adapted if they had been given enough time.

I'm unclear on how private companies would have learned to not compete, given that they are profit oriented.

I'm also unclear on how an uninsured house which no private firefighter will touch is not a danger to all other houses nearby irrespective of their fire insurance status.

Lastly I'm extremely unclear on why public firefighting services are such terrible things in your view. Just how much of your property taxes do you think actually goes towards paying for this service?

It is a lot less than the payments for fire insurance, I guarantee.

In the public system, if someone refuses to pay the property taxes that are used to fund the firefighting, their house is taken away from them by government. How is that really better for them than losing the house to a fire because they refused to pay fire insurance? At least with the latter, there's a chance that there won't be a fire and that they would be able to keep their house.

Yes, actually, because the rest of the city/street won't burn down when one house gets repossessed.

[Mashuri]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

In each example, actions are undertaken and choices made, but equally the individuals involved - in different settings - likely would have made different choices.

I don't see how you don't understand that this is compatible with praxeology. People assess their current situations and take action to change it to a situation they value more. Obviously, as situations, individual preferences and priorities change, different decisions will be made.

A very common example of this is a person sitting in a room full of people with a shot of tequila in front them. All the other people are shouting 'Shot!' 'Shot!' 'Shot!'

The person might hate tequila. They might have religious restrictions against alcohol. They might be allergic.

Yet the majority of people in that focus position will drink the shot even if they don't personally want to.

Remove the crowd, and equally the percentage of drinkers drops.

Clearly then, an individual's action does not axiomatically equal their conscious decision.



The examples I chose are ones which (at least to me) clearly objective individual conscious choices were subsumed by something else.

We need to deal with this particular point or there is no reason to go any further. In your tequila example, the individual chose to drink the shot because he valued social approval from the crowd more than he valued not drinking the shot. He assessed his situation (whether it was a predominantly emotional or intellectual judgment is irrelevant) and chose his action. In your later example of holding a gun to my head and offering me the choice of a bullet or jumping out the window, it was still my conscious choice, yes. You are responsible for coercing me to choose between guaranteed-death and most-likely-death but, given that, I still did asess my situation and choose the course of action I valued the most. The fact that I might have chosen an option you didn't demand, like to try and grab your gun, illustrates that I am still an independent actor.

[Sharky]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

I'm unclear on how private companies would have learned to not compete, given that they are profit oriented.

One of the most powerful aspects of Capitalism is that you don't need to understand how; the market will figure it out.

However, for the sake of argument, I can offer a few solutions:

1. Private fire engine companies / departments are assigned to a specific geographic area
2. People pay private insurance companies for coverage, including an extra assessment if they live near someone who is uninsured
3. The insurance companies contract with and pay the fire departments based on how many subscriber homes they cover
4. The fire departments have instructions to put out fires not only for subscriber's homes, but for any homes nearby that might pose a threat to subscribers

Alternatively, the insurance companies might choose to keep control of the fire departments. In that case, the fire departments would need to work out some method for responding to fires when homes from different insurers are covered. For example, maybe the first call in would take the lead, and call/direct others. It would be in everyone's long-term benefit to cooperate in such situations. Fire departments could contractually agree with each other that if a fire happens where more than one carrier is involved, that they will fight those fires in the same way as they would if it was under one carrier -- no preferential treatment.

Current car insurance companies provide a very basic model. If two people are in an accident and they are insured by different carriers, policies and procedures and contracts are in place that govern how much each carrier will pay, to who. There are also mechanisms for dealing with the uninsured when they have an accident involving an insured. However, someone who is uninsured won't have the damage on their car repaired.

I'm also unclear on how an uninsured house which no private firefighter will touch is not a danger to all other houses nearby irrespective of their fire insurance status.

The only reason it wouldn't be touched is if it was both uninsured and not a danger to any other nearby insured structures.

Look, in the end, there's nothing that a private service couldn't do that is done today by a public service.

Lastly I'm extremely unclear on why public firefighting services are such terrible things in your view. Just how much of your property taxes do you think actually goes towards paying for this service?

Forced public services of any kind are terrible things on principle, because they are a violation of individual rights. It is my right to choose whether I want them, and you have no moral or legal right to force me to pay for them. Force such as that is morally wrong. Government's role is not to protect me from harm or from being offended. Government's role is to protect my rights. Yet, how can it fully protect my rights if it is regularly violating them?

As a secondary, less important factor, I would also like to be able to choose my fire department. As it is, there's no competition between them, either to keep costs under control or to improve their firefighting skills. Competition breeds excellence, and the lack of it breeds laziness.

It is a lot less than the payments for fire insurance, I guarantee.

Cost isn't the issue.

[Sharky]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

Money authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act to build the National Highway System in 1956: $25 billion

Money spent in 2008 by the Federal Highway Transportation system: $40.585 billion.

So under your system, the federal highway system could never have been built, and in fact would be almost impossible to maintain much less all of the other federal actions - even excluding Defense, Social Security, Medicare, and what not.

I would argue that the federal highway system never should have been publicly funded, nor should social security or medicare.

Since you seem to consider that point of view "ideological and not practical," it might interest you to know that James Madison, one of the authors of the constitution, felt the same way. As president in 1817, he vetoed a bill that proposed to set apart and pledge funds to construct roads and canals, saying that the constitution did not grant government the authority for public charity.

Here's a link to a recent article by Walter E. Williams that touches on this subject:
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/walter...ution-permits/

I don't deny that the federal highway system has value. What I do deny is that the end justifies the means. If a thief puts a gun to my head, forcing me to give him money, and then uses that money to build a road, or a park, or an orphanage, it wouldn't diminish the fact that the money was obtained by force; it's still a crime.

[llanlad2]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

A private system could address that problem as well as a public one. For example, if a fire at an uninsured building threatens an insured building, then it's in everyone's best interest to fight it. Financially, risks for this kind of thing could be covered in the same way that we have private uninsured motorist insurance.

Then many people wouldn't bother getting insurance as they would assume their fire had to be put out to save the insured ones. You're right, it is in everyone's best interest to fight fires so no one should be able to opt out and rely on others.

[Ghent12]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

In each example, actions are undertaken and choices made, but equally the individuals involved - in different settings - likely would have made different choices.

A very common example of this is a person sitting in a room full of people with a shot of tequila in front them. All the other people are shouting 'Shot!' 'Shot!' 'Shot!'

The person might hate tequila. They might have religious restrictions against alcohol. They might be allergic.

Yet the majority of people in that focus position will drink the shot even if they don't personally want to.

Remove the crowd, and equally the percentage of drinkers drops.

Clearly then, an individual's action does not axiomatically equal their conscious decision.

I can't understand why you keep repeating this erroneous conclusion. What you are suggesting is that influence removes and replaces conscious thought. This is ludicrous. The situations you have described so far have illustrated people in situations, yet every single one of them has had the ability to choose consciously whether to follow the trend or to buck it. Based upon your most recent example, you seem to suggest that people with allergies to tequila and those who believe they have religious restrictions against it would still drink. Further, your example postulates that those individuals would make conscious choices to get them to that position in the first place.

People make conscious decisions about literally everything, even if under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or influential people/advertisements. You can claim that there is a scale of consciousness, that there is a point of maximum and a point of minimum lucidity, and I will accept that as most likely possible. However, what you are claiming is that conscious decision making is essentially impossible which I must consciously choose to flatly reject. How can you possibly claim such a thing? Why are you consciously choosing to claim that conscious choice is all but impossible? Is there a large crowd in your current location shouting "post, post post!" and you're just going along with the crowd, even though you're allergic to contradictions?


I will not argue in support of Marxism.


As for the utility of fashion ads--you don't see the usefulness in being fashionable? That is your problem, not mine, and indeed a problem for all Marxist or pseudo-Marxist economies like the old Soviet Union.

Additionally, I still don't see schools of thought that attempt to account for individual human action failing to predict future outcomes just because they don't have a special corollary for "net human mental state." Individual choices are still the absolute bedrock of economic activity, and individual human action can manifest itself in group action. Put another way, if individuals are "covered" by a theory, then how are groups not also "covered" by that same theory? Any thorough analysis of the situation of an individual inextricably yields the situation of any groups to which they may be considered a part of, and so any sufficiently thorough theory should have no need for a special group rule.

I'll give you the example of a loosely organized riot--Yes, many individuals find themselves "swept away" by the furor of the situation, willing to loot or to vandalize when they otherwise might not. However, they are not slaves to the trend; Snatch & Grab their leaders, or confront them with an organized wall of riot police, and generally the rioters will scatter because they choose to. Is their looting and vandalism not just a function of different circumstances upon which they enter? In their decision calculus, they perceive both acts as "safe" or at least safer than in a non-rioting environment, so any inclination they had to do those acts before becomes far less impeded in that situation. It's still an individual choice, however--there are still rioters that will not loot or vandalize during a riot even with the opportunity to do so.

[c1ue]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

I don't see how you don't understand that this is compatible with praxeology. People assess their current situations and take action to change it to a situation they value more. Obviously, as situations, individual preferences and priorities change, different decisions will be made.

I don't see the compatibility because of the inflexible rule that anything an individual does, is solely their responsibility.

If I can demonstrate that the individual acts differently even given identical knowledge and motivations, then clearly there can be external factors to decisions.

Quite frankly this is exactly the kind of thinking that says that a person who falls for a con job (i.e. housing always goes up) is the only one at fault, when in reality it is an entire system which significantly promulgated that action.

The way to fix the problem isn't to blame the individual, though the individual certainly shares some blame.

The problem in the housing case is clearly a systemic one.

Thus to focus all on the mythical individual is wrong - the concept is wrong, and thus many solutions are going to be wrong.

We need to deal with this particular point or there is no reason to go any further. In your tequila example, the individual chose to drink the shot because he valued social approval from the crowd more than he valued not drinking the shot. He assessed his situation (whether it was a predominantly emotional or intellectual judgment is irrelevant) and chose his action. In your later example of holding a gun to my head and offering me the choice of a bullet or jumping out the window, it was still my conscious choice, yes. You are responsible for coercing me to choose between guaranteed-death and most-likely-death but, given that, I still did asess my situation and choose the course of action I valued the most. The fact that I might have chosen an option you didn't demand, like to try and grab your gun, illustrates that I am still an independent actor.

Again, you assume that since you make the choices, that you are independent. But again, the reality is that you would not need to make the (all bad) choice between jumping, grabbing for the gun, or getting shot passively were it not for my overt action to hold a gun to your head.

So you can say you are independent all you want, but if my actions are the ones that put you in a no-win situation as I wished to, is this truly independence you are experiencing?

[c1ue]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

One of the most powerful aspects of Capitalism is that you don't need to understand how; the market will figure it out.

Fair enough. Let's then examine your solutions:

However, for the sake of argument, I can offer a few solutions:

1. Private fire engine companies / departments are assigned to a specific geographic area

Ruh roh Raggie, government is involved! Or are you saying some independent, mutually agreed upon arbiter will spontaneously arise?

2. People pay private insurance companies for coverage, including an extra assessment if they live near someone who is uninsured

So why again should those who are responsible pay for those who are not? It seems a clear violation of: "Your right to push your rights stops at my nose"

It seems more like "From each according to his abilitydesire for insurance, to each according to his needdesire to sponge off the insured

And what keeps the number of insured from constantly rising as more and more people figure out they don't need to pay for fire insurance? Another tragedy of the commons?

3. The insurance companies contract with and pay the fire departments based on how many subscriber homes they cover

This doesn't prevent fighting over water supplies, nor does it fix the uninsured house issue. In fact it would exacerbate it since now the fire fighting companies are directly incentivised to increase the 'area' they cover.

For example, if one house, covered by company A, is in an area primarily covered by company B, Company A should let the fire from that house burn the whole area down. It hurts their competitors, and the survivors when they rebuild will be incentivised to go with Company A.

4. The fire departments have instructions to put out fires not only for subscriber's homes, but for any homes nearby that might pose a threat to subscribers

Again, the same problems as 2. above

Alternatively, the insurance companies might choose to keep control of the fire departments. In that case, the fire departments would need to work out some method for responding to fires when homes from different insurers are covered. For example, maybe the first call in would take the lead, and call/direct others. It would be in everyone's long-term benefit to cooperate in such situations. Fire departments could contractually agree with each other that if a fire happens where more than one carrier is involved, that they will fight those fires in the same way as they would if it was under one carrier -- no preferential treatment.

But this doesn't resolve the overlap issue. You end up paying higher premiums because any given insurance company and/or firefighting department must somehow be able to flexibly support more or less area/customers, and so much consume even more overhead in the process.

For the insurance side, the overhead exists but is relatively low since it is all numbers. For firefighting, however, the need for more/less fire stations, fire trucks, fire men, etc is a huge logistical issue.

Current car insurance companies provide a very basic model. If two people are in an accident and they are insured by different carriers, policies and procedures and contracts are in place that govern how much each carrier will pay, to who. There are also mechanisms for dealing with the uninsured when they have an accident involving an insured. However, someone who is uninsured won't have the damage on their car repaired.

Cute example, but you are again focusing only on the FIRE side - i.e. the low overhead, bankster side.

Any given person's auto insurance (or lack thereof) can't cause all the other autos in the area to explode/burn.

Fixing a car isn't a time critical function.

Fixing a car doesn't require infrastructure investments with long construction times and maintenance like water systems and fire hydrants.

So while I understand your desire to show the free market can handle this problem, you really need to do a better job of it.

Every example you've put forward has huge issues, and you also failed to note the biggest one:

Even if all problems were fixed and firefighting services were somehow magically apportioned fairly, firefighting is a significant investment. Any such service therefore inherently has barriers to entry. And any service with significant barriers to entry and a huge downside for consumers lends itself very nicely to monopolistic/oligopolistic behavior: i.e. pay me 10% more every year or your house burns down.

As I note previously, whatever you might say about government services, at the least they don't hold you up for ransom in order to operate.

The only reason it wouldn't be touched is if it was both uninsured and not a danger to any other nearby insured structures.

So a firefighting service should spend time before each fire evaluating whether it is a danger or not to nearby insured structures? As well as determining which/if there are insured structures?

It seems like a whole lot of complexity for no reason.

Look, in the end, there's nothing that a private service couldn't do that is done today by a public service.

This reasoning could be turned around. There is nothing a public service couldn't do that is done today by a private service.

Yet there are plenty of reasons why some services should be private, and some should be public.

The point isn't whether it can be - I've never said it can't be done - the point is which does it better.

You've gone through all sorts of contortions to show how a private fire fighting service can happen, but you've yet to show why it is better to have one other than your desire to not pay any taxes.

Forced public services of any kind are terrible things on principle, because they are a violation of individual rights. It is my right to choose whether I want them, and you have no moral or legal right to force me to pay for them. Force such as that is morally wrong. Government's role is not to protect me from harm or from being offended. Government's role is to protect my rights. Yet, how can it fully protect my rights if it is regularly violating them?

I have to say that I disagree with your statement here.

Government is the embodiment of the operational collective will of the people, much as a democratic government is the embodiment of the collective political will of the people.

In a democracy, if 51% of the people decide to tax you, who are you to say that you opt out?

And how is this tyranny any different than a socialist or dictatorial government?

The difference is, you have a vote. But you still have to abide by the majority's decision.

As I've noted before, the Libertarians supposedly want to be independent and free, but that in effect means negating the will of the majority for their own desires if the will of the majority is different.

Or in other words, I want it my way.

As a secondary, less important factor, I would also like to be able to choose my fire department. As it is, there's no competition between them, either to keep costs under control or to improve their firefighting skills. Competition breeds excellence, and the lack of it breeds laziness.

...

Cost isn't the issue.

There is nothing to prevent a secondary, fully private fire fighting service from existing. Besides no one wanting to pay for it.

But you're welcome to start one.

[c1ue]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

I can't understand why you keep repeating this erroneous conclusion. What you are suggesting is that influence removes and replaces conscious thought. This is ludicrous. The situations you have described so far have illustrated people in situations, yet every single one of them has had the ability to choose consciously whether to follow the trend or to buck it. Based upon your most recent example, you seem to suggest that people with allergies to tequila and those who believe they have religious restrictions against it would still drink. Further, your example postulates that those individuals would make conscious choices to get them to that position in the first place.

In fact, the example is 100% true and I've seen it in any number of cultures.

I've seen a person turns red and goes unconscious literally from a glass of beer slam down 3 shots because of this dynamic, then have to be sent to the hospital.

Of course the person in question doesn't always respond; after all there are such things as counter-memes: Islam, Mormonism, etc etc.

You also are under the mistaken impression that I'm saying all actions are not the responsibility of the individual - this is also untrue.

What I am saying is that there are clearly some actions which are not, implying something beyond the individual at work.

People make conscious decisions about literally everything, even if under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or influential people/advertisements. You can claim that there is a scale of consciousness, that there is a point of maximum and a point of minimum lucidity, and I will accept that as most likely possible. However, what you are claiming is that conscious decision making is essentially impossible which I must consciously choose to flatly reject. How can you possibly claim such a thing? Why are you consciously choosing to claim that conscious choice is all but impossible? Is there a large crowd in your current location shouting "post, post post!" and you're just going along with the crowd, even though you're allergic to contradictions?

Again, you seem to think that I'm saying all conscious choice is impossible.

I say no such thing. I do say, some choices aren't conscious, and many choices have both conscious and subconscious components.

I've put up many such examples; I've yet to see a lucid explanation for these often self-abnegating behaviors.

I very much doubt every person in a peer pressure situation, for example, consciously thinks - if I do this, then I'll be in the 'in' group.

What you refuse to acknowledge is that there are many ways by which a person's actions can be influenced from the outside - in some cases controlled.

It doesn't mean the person is a puppet in all respects, but it does mean they can be made into a puppet in certain respects and equally be influenced to various degrees in many respects.

For that matter, the concept of 'libertarianism' is anathema in many other cultures - clearly there is something in the US which promotes the 'rugged individualist' meme much as Europeans tend toward the 'member of all society' meme.

I will not argue in support of Marxism.

I'm happy for you, but I fail to see how a public fire fighting service is Marxist

As for the utility of fashion ads--you don't see the usefulness in being fashionable? That is your problem, not mine, and indeed a problem for all Marxist or pseudo-Marxist economies like the old Soviet Union.

Again, you failed to understand the example. The example was intended to show that fashion is not an individual's choice, nor is it due to a select few leaders.

Therefore the idea that all individual's actions are self contained and consistent with the individual's knowledge/situation is false.

Additionally, I still don't see schools of thought that attempt to account for individual human action failing to predict future outcomes just because they don't have a special corollary for "net human mental state." Individual choices are still the absolute bedrock of economic activity, and individual human action can manifest itself in group action. Put another way, if individuals are "covered" by a theory, then how are groups not also "covered" by that same theory? Any thorough analysis of the situation of an individual inextricably yields the situation of any groups to which they may be considered a part of, and so any sufficiently thorough theory should have no need for a special group rule.

So I ask the question again: how do you account for the tipping of the scales between mania/bubble and panic?

How do you account for the differences between Argentina post bubble and South Korea post bubble - these even happened almost simultaneously with vastly different outcomes.

As for individual choices - why then are people choosing not to buy houses now when the exact same people were choosing to buy houses in 2005?

I'll give you the example of a loosely organized riot--Yes, many individuals find themselves "swept away" by the furor of the situation, willing to loot or to vandalize when they otherwise might not. However, they are not slaves to the trend; Snatch & Grab their leaders, or confront them with an organized wall of riot police, and generally the rioters will scatter because they choose to. Is their looting and vandalism not just a function of different circumstances upon which they enter? In their decision calculus, they perceive both acts as "safe" or at least safer than in a non-rioting environment, so any inclination they had to do those acts before becomes far less impeded in that situation. It's still an individual choice, however--there are still rioters that will not loot or vandalize during a riot even with the opportunity to do so.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this example.

A riot is an excuse for many people to do what they want. If they want to loot or desire to loot, then they will engage in that behavior.

Not every rioter has the same motives - some are just bored, some are angry, some are looking for their looting chance, some are trying to impress their girlfriends, many have combinations of the above.

Yet even in this example we see that some individuals are acting from choice, and others from opportunity, and perhaps still others from just being 'one of the crowd'. A shopkeeper who gets robbed by the riot then comes out with a shotgun and start blasting.

Did he choose to shoot up a bunch of random people?

Is his reaction entirely his own conscious choice?

A passersby gets mauled because he is wearing the wrong shirt color. The next day he joins a 'counter revolutionary' riot and beats up some kid.

Sure, he made a choice. But more than likely he would not have acted that way without the initial provocation.

To say that all of these examples are pure self contained individual choice is ludicrous.

[Sharky]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

Fair enough. Let's then examine your solutions:

I could rebut each of your points, but I'm not going to bother. This is more of an ideological problem than a practical one.

In a democracy, if 51% of the people decide to tax you, who are you to say that you opt out?

Who am I? I'm an individual, and I have rights, which the majority should not be able to violate. If they do, then we have a tyranny of the majority.

As I've noted before, the Libertarians supposedly want to be independent and free, but that in effect means negating the will of the majority for their own desires if the will of the majority is different.

Yes, if the will of the majority violates my rights, then it should be negated.

The Founders discussed this issue at great length; that's why the US was set up as a Republic, and not a Democracy. In a Democracy, you invariably end up with a form of gang war, as different groups vote away the rights of other groups.

Or in other words, I want it my way.

Yes, exactly -- but with the constraint that "my way" doesn't violate anyone else's rights.

[DSpencer]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

LOL.

It's like these people never even played Monopoly. No taxes in that game 1 winner 5 bankrupts.

The notion that you are freer because you hand over all your money to a landowner/banker rather than to a government is retarded.

In fact there is an income tax and a luxury tax in the game of Monopoly.

Currently I don't feel like I'm losing a lot of money to "landowners". The bankers get my money primarily through the government.

Is your experience different?

[FRED]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

In fact there is an income tax and a luxury tax in the game of Monopoly.

Currently I don't feel like I'm losing a lot of money to "landowners". The bankers get my money primarily through the government.

Is your experience different?

Let's play Oligopoly!

[c1ue]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

Yes, if the will of the majority violates my rights, then it should be negated.

The Founders discussed this issue at great length; that's why the US was set up as a Republic, and not a Democracy. In a Democracy, you invariably end up with a form of gang war, as different groups vote away the rights of other groups.

My friend, having a Republic is in no way a preservation of rights; just ask the slaves, the South, the Whiskey Rebellion, etc etc. The only difference between a Republic and an outright Democracy is a smaller 'gang'.

There is no situation except pure anarchy where your rights will never be violated, if you define your rights as always having your own way.

If you desire to live in a modern, civilized society, you must be willing to compromise.

I do agree though, that if you're willing to forgo the benefits of said society, that you should be perfectly able to do so.

In this respect the government chasing after hermits in Idaho - assuming they're not committing credit card fraud crimes and what not - is ludicrous.

But I simply do not agree that just because you buy a house for which the roads leading to it are government built and maintained; for which the water, gas, electricity and sewage systems connected are government built and maintained; in which you consume products and services which also in significant ways benefit from infrastructure built due to government; the building itself as well as your person which is protected by government (police and fire fighting services); as well as all the other items like vaccination/health codes, building codes, zoning ordinances, public education, anti-pollution laws, ad infinitum; that you have the 'right' to opt out paying at least some share.

[DSpencer]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

Let's play Oligopoly!

Very entertaining thanks for the link.

I have a question regarding economic rent. I don't really know how or to whom this question should be asked. The term economic rent seems to have a negative connotation. Is the implication that all forms of economic rent including charging interest on loans should be banned? Is there some other message that I'm missing?

[DSpencer]

Re: Austrian School vs. itulip / FIRE

A short summary:

1) Shift taxes off labor by shifting them from income to property and capital gains, because the vast majority of wealth in the US is still in the form of property. Secondly that the notion of high capital gains taxes hindering growth is a fallacy - 90% capital gains taxes in the turn of the century still let the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and so forth accumulate vast wealth.

2) More specifically, shift the taxes from just simple property, to the land portion of property. In other words, you pay only on the value of the land but not on the improvements on it (house, water well, whatever).

3) Enforce the laws on the books. Banksters in jail.

Thanks.

1. Is the goal of this to "close the wealth gap"?

It seems like a logical fallacy to say that:
A few families accumulated vast wealth during times of high capital gains taxes.
Therefore, high capital gains taxes do not hinder [economic] growth.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but that logic does not convince me at all.

2. What is the goal of this specification?

I approach political/economic issues primarily from a philosophic perspective which has led me to mostly libertarian POV. So I have issues with property taxes in the sense that you no longer own your property, you rent it from the government. However, I can foresee situations where finite land and a growing population leads me to ethical problems. I'm also a pretty practical person and would readily agree (not that I have a real choice) to a less than ideal situation if it was an improvement over the current situation.

3. No argument there.

Overall, these seem like somewhat minor changes anyway. This doesn't really seem to solve the problems we have with the present corporatocracy. I guess maybe #3 encompasses a lot of the corruption that leads to political/economic problems, but I think we need more than that. I think our monetary system is structurally flawed.

As I asked in an earlier post, I also don't see how changing the tax structure would change much. It seems like the extra cost of property taxes would just be passed along anyway.