How can Anarchocapitalism break monopolies?

[Dr Kynes]

So no dwellings were built before capitalism?

absolutely correct!

no dwellings were built before the concept of ownership of land and "sedentary peoples" evolved.

nomadic peoples used portable temporary shelters, or caves. the first permanent dwellings were erected by people who OWNED their land and worked to improve it. without the concept of ownership there can be no clearing of fields, no building of pastures, and no planting of crops. nobody clears forests, carries stones, or digs irrigation canals for land they plan to simply walk away from at the end of the growing season and perhaps never visit again.

once again, the basic drive that allows human society to survive is the concept that land can be owned.
in the first city, Ur of the Chaldees, The grandfather of Gilgasmesh stood on a hill and declared "We Are The Chaldeans, And This IS Our City!" and they defended their land from all comers.

welcome to capitalism's birth.

 

[deprave]

Not true at all, I didn't even start the shovel metaphor. So you think it is a good thing if a few oligarchs own the whole world and employ the rest of humanity to buy from them?

horrible horrible metaphor, shovels are not always made of iron.

This metaphor.... its horrible.

A few oligarchs ran the world eh? my friend, did you fall on your head this morning? Tell us more about how your statist ideas will protect us from bad guys, from the evil ones, I need a bed time story, I need to go back to sleep.

[video=youtube;c_nW0uobGpM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_nW0uobGpM[/video]

 

[GOD HERE]

So no dwellings were built before capitalism?

Lovin the sig.

 

[tokeprep]

With 25 pages I don't want to look at all the posts in this thread, so I'll just make some points instead.

First, you should never trust people with absolute freedom. They'll find ways to abuse it, and if violent resistance or government action can't combat that cancer, it will grow increasingly harmful. At the other end, if you permit force too freely or regulate too heavily, all kinds of efficient activities will be blocked. Unsurprisingly, the optimal answer is probably somewhere in the middle of the extremes: some freedom combined with some regulation. Whether you live in Rand's world or Marx's, whether there's anarchocapitalism or socialist libertarianism, humans are just too selfish to be trusted.

The wealth in the world now is greater than ever before. Everything we have is built up on an inheritance that was the life's work of tens of billions of dead hands; that's already communal, in our expectations about what we're entitled to, knowledge, and the modern gifts that most of our generation (in the develop world) have been privileged to enjoy. How do you value something like instant communication when it didn't practically exist until just a few decades ago? People like to suggest that we have less today than we did relative to certain periods of the past, but that's just not true. The size of a house has doubled since 50 years ago; everyone has a cell phone and an internet connection (I would have said cable a few years ago too); cars are substantially safer and run far better; I can type this in my sleepy little college town and have it instantly ready anywhere in the entire world; and I see way too many people walking around with Starbucks every single day. If you made a person today live like they would have in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, etc., I guarantee they would have more money. And yet at the same time, if they had experienced the difference, I also assure you they would feel far less wealthy than they do now. Much of the world's wealth is concentrated now, yes, but the essentials have been nearly universally distributed to anyone who wants them, and the intangibles grant us unimaginable wealth that no one can possibly value. Most Americans are concerned solely with chasing the non-essentials, which is really astounding when you think about it...

Since society is the source of personal wealth--everyone's products being far less useful without markets and specialized trading partners--society should have the right to pursue its interest, which should be to accrue as much wealth as possible to the greatest number of people in society. The way to do this isn't to eliminate private property or the government, both actions having vastly negative effects on society's wealth, in the first instance by destroying incentives to work, in the second by encouraging inevitable abuses--too much of the self-serving behavior that's otherwise valuable. Instead, society should encourage personal wealth within the limits it sets, and no one seeking it has the right to complain, since that wealth could not exist without society. In determining the limits, we should be guided by pragmatic economic insights. When you give people everything they need, they won't work as hard; when you let people controlling a market talk about price, they raise it; when you let monopolists divide up territories, you destroy competitive evolution. All of these things are bad for more people than they're good for.

The concentration issue bothers me, but I think society should solve it by eliminating the notion of inheritance. If every person in the world, whether rich or poor, knew that they could only stand on their own personal accomplishments in life--and actually had to--many of the presently discouraged and more capable would stand up, while many at the top who would otherwise be insufficiently incentivized would act better. I'm not sure what should become of the wealth; perhaps it should be the primary means of funding the government, rather than taxes. I don't mean the government owning enterprises and real estate; perhaps they would sell whatever they got to the market in auctions or something. This could eliminate tax distortions on behavior and encourage more economic activity by everyone. I think this would be better than having so much money locked away in investments and trusts that only serve to discourage well-bred people from working. The retort is usually that preserving wealth for heirs is a motivation for acquiring wealth, but I doubt that claim. Who really works hard to acquire assets for their children? They might say that, but is it really true? For example, I saw a survey a few months ago from a retirement planning company that suggested wealth for heirs is a decreasingly important goal.

Ultimately society is probably at its best if humanity both encourages and restricts freedom. The answer is in the middle, stoking our natural competitive and self-serving instincts to an extent, generating societal wealth, while also limiting those instincts when appropriate, again creating or at least maintaining societal wealth. This will never be perfect, given that the mob is difficult to control, but it's better than the other options.

 

[Harrekin]

With 25 pages I don't want to look at all the posts in this thread, so I'll just make some points instead.

First, you should never trust people with absolute freedom. They'll find ways to abuse it, and if violent resistance or government action can't combat that cancer, it will grow increasingly harmful. At the other end, if you permit force too freely or regulate too heavily, all kinds of efficient activities will be blocked. Unsurprisingly, the optimal answer is probably somewhere in the middle of the extremes: some freedom combined with some regulation. Whether you live in Rand's world or Marx's, whether there's anarchocapitalism or socialist libertarianism, humans are just too selfish to be trusted.

The wealth in the world now is greater than ever before. Everything we have is built up on an inheritance that was the life's work of tens of billions of dead hands; that's already communal, in our expectations about what we're entitled to, knowledge, and the modern gifts that most of our generation (in the develop world) have been privileged to enjoy. How do you value something like instant communication when it didn't practically exist until just a few decades ago? People like to suggest that we have less today than we did relative to certain periods of the past, but that's just not true. The size of a house has doubled since 50 years ago; everyone has a cell phone and an internet connection (I would have said cable a few years ago too); cars are substantially safer and run far better; I can type this in my sleepy little college town and have it instantly ready anywhere in the entire world; and I see way too many people walking around with Starbucks every single day. If you made a person today live like they would have in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, etc., I guarantee they would have more money. And yet at the same time, if they had experienced the difference, I also assure you they would feel far less wealthy than they do now. Much of the world's wealth is concentrated now, yes, but the essentials have been nearly universally distributed to anyone who wants them, and the intangibles grant us unimaginable wealth that no one can possibly value. Most Americans are concerned solely with chasing the non-essentials, which is really astounding when you think about it...

Since society is the source of personal wealth--everyone's products being far less useful without markets and specialized trading partners--society should have the right to pursue its interest, which should be to accrue as much wealth as possible to the greatest number of people in society. The way to do this isn't to eliminate private property or the government, both actions having vastly negative effects on society's wealth, in the first instance by destroying incentives to work, in the second by encouraging inevitable abuses--too much of the self-serving behavior that's otherwise valuable. Instead, society should encourage personal wealth within the limits it sets, and no one seeking it has the right to complain, since that wealth could not exist without society. In determining the limits, we should be guided by pragmatic economic insights. When you give people everything they need, they won't work as hard; when you let people controlling a market talk about price, they raise it; when you let monopolists divide up territories, you destroy competitive evolution. All of these things are bad for more people than they're good for.

The concentration issue bothers me, but I think society should solve it by eliminating the notion of inheritance. If every person in the world, whether rich or poor, knew that they could only stand on their own personal accomplishments in life--and actually had to--many of the presently discouraged and more capable would stand up, while many at the top who would otherwise be insufficiently incentivized would act better. I'm not sure what should become of the wealth; perhaps it should be the primary means of funding the government, rather than taxes. I don't mean the government owning enterprises and real estate; perhaps they would sell whatever they got to the market in auctions or something. This could eliminate tax distortions on behavior and encourage more economic activity by everyone. I think this would be better than having so much money locked away in investments and trusts that only serve to discourage well-bred people from working. The retort is usually that preserving wealth for heirs is a motivation for acquiring wealth, but I doubt that claim. Who really works hard to acquire assets for their children? They might say that, but is it really true? For example, I saw a survey a few months ago from a retirement planning company that suggested wealth for heirs is a decreasingly important goal.

Ultimately society is probably at its best if humanity both encourages and restricts freedom. The answer is in the middle, stoking our natural competitive and self-serving instincts to an extent, generating societal wealth, while also limiting those instincts when appropriate, again creating or at least maintaining societal wealth. This will never be perfect, given that the mob is difficult to control, but it's better than the other options.

Tl;dr

Nice post tho.

 

[Dr Kynes]

With 25 pages I don't want to look at all the posts in this thread, so I'll just make some points instead.

First, you should never trust people with absolute freedom. They'll find ways to abuse it, and if violent resistance or government action can't combat that cancer, it will grow increasingly harmful. At the other end, if you permit force too freely or regulate too heavily, all kinds of efficient activities will be blocked. Unsurprisingly, the optimal answer is probably somewhere in the middle of the extremes: some freedom combined with some regulation. Whether you live in Rand's world or Marx's, whether there's anarchocapitalism or socialist libertarianism, humans are just too selfish to be trusted.

the assumption of a free society is that all things are lawful and allowed, save that society and our CONSENT through our elected representatives and plebiscites prohibit an action in specific. the presumption of prohibition is how you get despotism, and the rise of the autocratic state. More Freedom Good, Less Freedom Bad.
also, "Anarcho-Capitalism" and "Libertarian Socialism" are still both oxymorons.

The wealth in the world now is greater than ever before. Everything we have is built up on an inheritance that was the life's work of tens of billions of dead hands; that's already communal, in our expectations about what we're entitled to, knowledge, and the modern gifts that most of our generation (in the develop world) have been privileged to enjoy. How do you value something like instant communication when it didn't practically exist until just a few decades ago? People like to suggest that we have less today than we did relative to certain periods of the past, but that's just not true. The size of a house has doubled since 50 years ago; everyone has a cell phone and an internet connection (I would have said cable a few years ago too); cars are substantially safer and run far better; I can type this in my sleepy little college town and have it instantly ready anywhere in the entire world; and I see way too many people walking around with Starbucks every single day. If you made a person today live like they would have in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, etc., I guarantee they would have more money. And yet at the same time, if they had experienced the difference, I also assure you they would feel far less wealthy than they do now. Much of the world's wealth is concentrated now, yes, but the essentials have been nearly universally distributed to anyone who wants them, and the intangibles grant us unimaginable wealth that no one can possibly value. Most Americans are concerned solely with chasing the non-essentials, which is really astounding when you think about it...

the "wealth of the world" is still the same as it ever was, it is the hard work and imagination of those who strive for better, and more. robbing a person of the right to pass on that hard work to your progeny is THEFT, and is the surest way possible to turn all "wealth" over to corporate interests, since THEY NEVER DIE, and thus their property and wealth can only grow while we mere mortals would be stuck on a hamsterwheel for every succeeding generation. destroying the possibility of inheritance will drive all humanity into serfdom. why clear a feild, build a house, raise livestock, and farm the land when once you die, the government will take it from you and your kids will have to move to the city and work for Starbucks?

Since society is the source of personal wealth--everyone's products being far less useful without markets and specialized trading partners--society should have the right to pursue its interest, which should be to accrue as much wealth as possible to the greatest number of people in society. The way to do this isn't to eliminate private property or the government, both actions having vastly negative effects on society's wealth, in the first instance by destroying incentives to work, in the second by encouraging inevitable abuses--too much of the self-serving behavior that's otherwise valuable. Instead, society should encourage personal wealth within the limits it sets, and no one seeking it has the right to complain, since that wealth could not exist without society. In determining the limits, we should be guided by pragmatic economic insights. When you give people everything they need, they won't work as hard; when you let people controlling a market talk about price, they raise it; when you let monopolists divide up territories, you destroy competitive evolution. All of these things are bad for more people than they're good for.

society is the facilitator of improvements in life, not the source of wealth, wealth is merely a measure of the prosperity created by the WORK of actual people, not the musings of cofffeehouse theorists and self-aggrandizing pundits. your premise fails.

The concentration issue bothers me, but I think society should solve it by eliminating the notion of inheritance. If every person in the world, whether rich or poor, knew that they could only stand on their own personal accomplishments in life--and actually had to--many of the presently discouraged and more capable would stand up, while many at the top who would otherwise be insufficiently incentivized would act better. I'm not sure what should become of the wealth; perhaps it should be the primary means of funding the government, rather than taxes. I don't mean the government owning enterprises and real estate; perhaps they would sell whatever they got to the market in auctions or something. This could eliminate tax distortions on behavior and encourage more economic activity by everyone. I think this would be better than having so much money locked away in investments and trusts that only serve to discourage well-bred people from working. The retort is usually that preserving wealth for heirs is a motivation for acquiring wealth, but I doubt that claim. Who really works hard to acquire assets for their children? They might say that, but is it really true? For example, I saw a survey a few months ago from a retirement planning company that suggested wealth for heirs is a decreasingly important goal.

your proposed auctioning off everyone's lifes work to the highest bidder simply ensures that the highest bidders will own EVERYTHING and that way lie monarchy.

Ultimately society is probably at its best if humanity both encourages and restricts freedom. The answer is in the middle, stoking our natural competitive and self-serving instincts to an extent, generating societal wealth, while also limiting those instincts when appropriate, again creating or at least maintaining societal wealth. This will never be perfect, given that the mob is difficult to control, but it's better than the other options.

so your answer is blind trust in the benevolent all powerful state and our noble philosopher kings to do whats best for us, and meek submission to the inevitability of slavery.

bravo.

read Plato's Republic, he covered all your points 2400 years ago and crushed them all.

 

[deprave]

With 25 pages I don't want to look at all the posts in this thread, so I'll just make some points instead.

First, you should never trust people with absolute freedom.

Because a few bad apples?

They'll find ways to abuse it, and if violent resistance or government action can't combat that cancer,
it will grow increasingly harmful.

They can't, won't, and don't.. they are the cancer.

At the other end, if you permit force too freely or regulate too heavily, all kinds of efficient activities will be blocked. Unsurprisingly, the optimal answer is probably somewhere in the middle of the extremes: some freedom combined with some regulation. Whether you live in Rand's world or Marx's, whether there's anarchocapitalism or socialist libertarianism, humans are just too selfish to be trusted.

Then why should some of them have a monopoly on violence and force? Why should any of them? Why should anyone not be held accountable to the same moral rules?

The wealth in the world now is greater than ever before. Everything we have is built up on an inheritance that was the life's work of tens of billions of dead hands; that's already communal, in our expectations about what we're entitled to, knowledge, and the modern gifts that most of our generation (in the develop world) have been privileged to enjoy. How do you value something like instant communication when it didn't practically exist until just a few decades ago? People like to suggest that we have less today than we did relative to certain periods of the past, but that's just not true. The size of a house has doubled since 50 years ago; everyone has a cell phone and an internet connection (I would have said cable a few years ago too); cars are substantially safer and run far better; I can type this in my sleepy little college town and have it instantly ready anywhere in the entire world; and I see way too many people walking around with Starbucks every single day. If you made a person today live like they would have in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, etc., I guarantee they would have more money. And yet at the same time, if they had experienced the difference, I also assure you they would feel far less wealthy than they do now. Much of the world's wealth is concentrated now, yes, but the essentials have been nearly universally distributed to anyone who wants them, and the intangibles grant us unimaginable wealth that no one can possibly value. Most Americans are concerned solely with chasing the non-essentials, which is really astounding when you think about it...

So how much better off would we be if we had freedom? How much better off would we be without corpratism, corruption, and monopolies? I think we would be much better, these are the primary things that hold us back. You're giving credit to them for this? Think about it, This is like a slave saying, "Slavery is so great masa gives me everything I needs, look how far we came, how much better things are, we get taken care of and will live much longer lives".

So without the slaves then who will pick the cotton? How would we have such nice shirts? It is not a question of "How will absolute freedom work?", not a question of semantics, its simply a question of whats morally right. Is slavery morally right?

 

[tokeprep]

the assumption of a free society is that all things are lawful and allowed, save that society and our CONSENT through our elected representatives and plebiscites prohibit an action in specific. the presumption of prohibition is how you get despotism, and the rise of the autocratic state. More Freedom Good, Less Freedom Bad.
also, "Anarcho-Capitalism" and "Libertarian Socialism" are still both oxymorons.

That's not incompatible with what I said--I offered no expression of where limits came from. I do believe they should be propagated through democratic means, and I fall on the side of more freedom rather than less.

the "wealth of the world" is still the same as it ever was, it is the hard work and imagination of those who strive for better, and more. robbing a person of the right to pass on that hard work to your progeny is THEFT, and is the surest way possible to turn all "wealth" over to corporate interests, since THEY NEVER DIE, and thus their property and wealth can only grow while we mere mortals would be stuck on a hamsterwheel for every succeeding generation. destroying the possibility of inheritance will drive all humanity into serfdom. why clear a feild, build a house, raise livestock, and farm the land when once you die, the government will take it from you and your kids will have to move to the city and work for Starbucks?

A dead person has no use for property and should have no property. Our practice of transferring that property by will or to families in intestate succession is just a custom, one without rational basis (I assert that permitting the living to be bound by the wishes of the dead and to follow those wishes to poor allocation choices is irrational).

To permit inheritance is to permit one group of humans to accrue and enjoy systematic advantages over other humans without meriting those advantages. The person who inherits is the lucky winner of a lottery--it's pure luck. Wealth should be earned by every individual human being by their own hands, based on their own merit. All people should have equal incentive to work. Corporations are just owned by people--they have no independent interests. When the shareholder dies, someone else buys the shares. What's the concentration issue?

I already addressed the claim that transmitting property to heirs is a significant incentive to work. Empirically, there's little evidence behind it (the evidence suggesting that it was a bigger concern in the past). Individuals act to make themselves well off, not because they care about what their children will inherit. I repeat that it's something people often voice, but I question their sincerity. Personally, I've never known a single person who was actually motivated by such a consideration.

society is the facilitator of improvements in life, not the source of wealth, wealth is merely a measure of the prosperity created by the WORK of actual people, not the musings of cofffeehouse theorists and self-aggrandizing pundits. your premise fails.

We're just using the word "wealth" in different ways. My point was that individual people cannot have wealth without the presence of society--it is the source of wealth. An individual has limited capacity to specialize and create, but a society has far greater capacity and can create far more. Anyone who chooses to be part of a society, drawing from its wealth, should be bound by its rules.

your proposed auctioning off everyone's lifes work to the highest bidder simply ensures that the highest bidders will own EVERYTHING and that way lie monarchy.

Perhaps some high bidder would own a lot, but that wouldn't matter when they died; their wealth would be subject to the same fate. Concentration is reduced, not worsened.

so your answer is blind trust in the benevolent all powerful state and our noble philosopher kings to do whats best for us, and meek submission to the inevitability of slavery.

bravo.

read Plato's Republic, he covered all your points 2400 years ago and crushed them all.

That's not my answer at all. My point was that the extremes are unworkable silliness--the answer is in the middle. I think people should strive to overcome powerful interest groups, take truth to heart, and seek that which will actually make them better off. Obviously that's not going to happen for any sustained period of time. People are far closer on most policy issues than they typically believe, if all they think about is what they actually want. The pull of interest groups disguises that fact.

A society is a mob that doesn't always do the right thing. Nonetheless, a government that's between the extremes of none and omnipotence results in the best outcome for people. I think we're destined to swing back and forth from that center for a very long time.

 

[tokeprep]

Because a few bad apples?

I'd say it's more than "a few," but I wouldn't call them "bad apples." Human nature is inescapable--it encourages and incentivizes all kinds of bad behavior. But society can recognize and regulate that behavior, restricting its impact.

Then why should some of them have a monopoly on violence and force? Why should any of them? Why should anyone not be held accountable to the same moral rules?

I would assert that a society should have that monopoly because it has the right to look after its own interests. An individual choosing to be part of society consents to be bound by its rules. How can society function well if violence and force are permitted too freely?

So how much better off would we be if we had freedom? How much better off would we be without corpratism, corruption, and monopolies? I think we would be much better, these are the primary things that hold us back. You're giving credit to them for this? Think about it, This is like a slave saying, "Slavery is so great masa gives me everything I needs, look how far we came, how much better things are, we get taken care of and will live much longer lives".

So without the slaves then who will pick the cotton? How would we have such nice shirts? It is not a question of "How will absolute freedom work?", not a question of semantics, its simply a question of whats morally right. Is slavery morally right?

I think corporatism, corruption, and monopolies are all harmful things, and that's why we do and should continue to regulate them. Absolute freedom only encourages those negatives to exist. Perhaps we just disagree on what is "corrupt" and what a "monopoly" is, if you're suggesting those things aren't sufficiently controlled.

Aren't we all slaves, in that we're forced by our physical needs to do something valuable enabling us to survive? The only escape should be death (not inheritances or government handouts).

 

[Dr Kynes]

That's not incompatible with what I said--I offered no expression of where limits came from. I do believe they should be propagated through democratic means, and I fall on the side of more freedom rather than less.

"democratic means" can be anything from a constitutional republic to the unruly mob taking what they wish like a horde of locusts.
your inexactitude is either a deliberate attempt to obfuscate, or a lack of consistent philosophical grounds for your beliefs.

A dead person has no use for property and should have no property. Our practice of transferring that property by will or to families in intestate succession is just a custom, one without rational basis (I assert that permitting the living to be bound by the wishes of the dead and to follow those wishes to poor allocation choices is irrational).

our "custom" is the custom of OWNERSHIP if i own a thing i can decide who gets it when im dead. your assertions overlook the simple fact that if shit workjs the way you imagine, i could just "sell" my estate toi my descendents BEFORE i die, and they could do the same. you really havent thought this through, and you really have no idea what your silly proposition means. your notion (idea is too strong a word) would either put us all in bondage to corporate overlords, or enthrone a new aristocracy to rule over us as did the emperors of old. your obvious and distressing lack of interest in the property of others is a sure sign that you never earned a dime, worked for anything or had to pay a tax. go back to whatever university put that crap in your head and demand a refund.

To permit inheritance is to permit one group of humans to accrue and enjoy systematic advantages over other humans without meriting those advantages. The person who inherits is the lucky winner of a lottery--it's pure luck. Wealth should be earned by every individual human being by their own hands, based on their own merit. All people should have equal incentive to work. Corporations are just owned by people--they have no independent interests. When the shareholder dies, someone else buys the shares. What's the concentration issue?

i got it youre jealous of people who have something and you dont have shit. get a job, work hard, save money, buy land, raise a family, pass it all on to your kids. that'll show those dirty nasty 1%'ers what for!

crying your eyes out and planning the overthrow of everything human society has been based on since time began in favour of some new "totally not marxism but otherwise exactly the same shit" new hotness from the halls of anarcho-academia is not a solution to your jealousy.

blah blah blah, all the rest was tedious semantics and restating your anarcho-non-inheritancialist bullcrap.

plato still demolished your silly notion in the republic 2400 years ago. it was a sophomoric brainfart when his student put it forth back then, and it hasnt gotten better with age.

even a philosopher king with a heart full of benevolence and justice cannot run everybody's lives for them, since nobody wants exactly the same thing.
if YOU try it it will be chaos and youll most likely get hung with piano wire in the town square like mussolini, or put in a sack and beaten with reeds before you get set on fire and tossed off a cliff.

 

[tokeprep]

"democratic means" can be anything from a constitutional republic to the unruly mob taking what they wish like a horde of locusts.
your inexactitude is either a deliberate attempt to obfuscate, or a lack of consistent philosophical grounds for your beliefs.

I wouldn't call an "unruly mob" democratic, and I doubt most people would. By "democratic means" I meant the free choice of the participating stakeholders, the people from whom the government derives its authority.

our "custom" is the custom of OWNERSHIP if i own a thing i can decide who gets it when im dead. your assertions overlook the simple fact that if shit workjs the way you imagine, i could just "sell" my estate toi my descendents BEFORE i die, and they could do the same. you really havent thought this through, and you really have no idea what your silly proposition means. your notion (idea is too strong a word) would either put us all in bondage to corporate overlords, or enthrone a new aristocracy to rule over us as did the emperors of old.

You can only own things while you're alive. Once dead, your ownership is meaningless, and respecting it is irrational. Yes, it's yours, I know, and right now it is yours; but once you're dead, there is no you, so it cannot possibly be yours. If I were convinced that inheritance had socially positive effects I would not oppose it. But I've only seen the opposite; the supposed incentive effect is both realistically and empirically bankrupt. If society can gain more from another policy it should enact that policy.

I don't understand how this would create corporate overlords or enthrone a new aristocracy. If you mean because people would avoid the inheritance rules, the answer is that they could do so no more than they otherwise avoid tax now. Related party transactions? We already scrutinize them heavily--the same rules could apply. Some people will inevitably get around the tax, but most will comply, especially if the penalties are severe. The new wealthy would rise up in each generation, having earned their own fortunes.

your obvious and distressing lack of interest in the property of others is a sure sign that you never earned a dime, worked for anything or had to pay a tax. go back to whatever university put that crap in your head and demand a refund.

I worked quite hard to get out of being po' white trash, and then I made around $100,000 as an undergrad. Everything I own is derived from my own effort, and I've certainly paid my share of taxes. Funnily enough, I was on the other side of this debate before I made money. I just believe everyone should work hard. Everyone.

i got it youre jealous of people who have something and you dont have shit. get a job, work hard, save money, buy land, raise a family, pass it all on to your kids. that'll show those dirty nasty 1%'ers what for!

I'm not jealous. I had a taste of that life and plenty of opportunities to go back to it. Again, I would say I was jealous before that happened. I changed my mind afterward, with a few years of practical experience and observation of many other people.

crying your eyes out and planning the overthrow of everything human society has been based on since time began in favour of some new "totally not marxism but otherwise exactly the same shit" new hotness from the halls of anarcho-academia is not a solution to your jealousy.

blah blah blah, all the rest was tedious semantics and restating your anarcho-non-inheritancialist bullcrap.

This is theoretical, not a plan for anything. It has occurred to me that a substantial majority of the American population stands to inherit nothing and thus has no reason to protect inheritance, certainly, but what a messy election that would be! Conditions would have to grow far worse than they are before any such policy change could be feasible.

I'm not anarcho-anything. Hate all of it--I've written a lot combating it.

plato still demolished your silly notion in the republic 2400 years ago. it was a sophomoric brainfart when his student put it forth back then, and it hasnt gotten better with age.

even a philosopher king with a heart full of benevolence and justice cannot run everybody's lives for them, since nobody wants exactly the same thing.
if YOU try it it will be chaos and youll most likely get hung with piano wire in the town square like mussolini, or put in a sack and beaten with reeds before you get set on fire and tossed off a cliff.

I'm familiar, thanks, and Plato's consideration of some of these premises is interesting, sure, but certainly not authoritative.

Obviously I don't propose a philosopher-king. My point has been that our best option is to live with the imperfections inherent in government systems.

 

[Dr Kynes]

so, upon your death everything you own, right down to the pennies on your eyes will be donated to some "charity" or the government, so your kids can learn how important it is to be poor white trash too?

your disdain for inheritance has no basis in reality. unless you were born in a log cabin you built with your own hands, somebody helped you go from mewling infant to undergrad, and that didnt come cheap. your parents presumably, did that shit so you could have a better life than they did, not so you could work some menial job in a copy shop at 3am printing out flyers for a titty bar.

the current system of personal and familial responsibility for the raising and development of the young may not be perfect, and even when attempted with the best of intentions it may not always work out, that doesnt mean we should scrap it all and surrender everything to the auctioneer in a giant going out of business/bankruptcy/fire sale to the highest bidder and hope shit works out better next time.

the current system already performs magnificently at the job you seem to endorse which is ensuring that if you waork your ass off your whole life, and do alright, when you die the government gets everything "back" because "you didnt build that" well heres a tip for you, my grandfather DID build that.

he bough cheap land, and worked it till it produced. he farmed like a champ, producing high quality crops without developing a crippling mortgage, he built the house with his own hands (and some of my uncles too) he built the barn, he built the fences, and when he died, the government took it all to satisfy his estate taxes. ya see he had a MASSIVE estate, despite having less then 10 grand in the bank. the land was taxed at the assessed value, but sold for less than half that, and as a result when he died, all we had left was his deer rifle and his el camino. that was what his entire life amounted to. a 40 year old rifle and a 12 year old chevy.

if he had been a propper magnate like you imagine all wealthy people to be, he would have had swiss bank accounts, yachts, and teams of tax accountants to ensure that his estate went right where it was intended to go. i guess he should have worked a little harder ehh? and i shouldnt have planned on inheriting a farm...

what puzzles me is, all you who think socialism is the best thing ever, all follow up your every grandiose marxist claim with "but im rich, so actually im totally screwing myself over lol, see how self-sacrificing i am?" i dont buy it. your selling the same old "socialism without the marxist filling" that has been so popular in the last 30 years or so, but people who have to bust their asses to keep their heads above water dont believe that shit, only pampered lefty "intellectuals" and second year social studies majors buy marxism any more.

youre just another marxist working an angle you think is new and unique, but it still smells just as bad as the intellectual vanguard, the agrarian vanguard, and the anarcho-nonsense that has been trotted out so many times before.

 

[echelon1k1]

i guess he should have worked a little harder ehh? and i shouldnt have planned on inheriting a farm...

Speak for yourself. POS.

 

[tokeprep]

so, upon your death everything you own, right down to the pennies on your eyes will be donated to some "charity" or the government, so your kids can learn how important it is to be poor white trash too?

your disdain for inheritance has no basis in reality. unless you were born in a log cabin you built with your own hands, somebody helped you go from mewling infant to undergrad, and that didnt come cheap. your parents presumably, did that shit so you could have a better life than they did, not so you could work some menial job in a copy shop at 3am printing out flyers for a titty bar.

I think raising a child is quite different from leaving your property to that child on death. Children can't fend for themselves--they absolutely need someone to provide for them. But adults can provide for themselves. What a person owns should reflect the value they contributed to society, not the past labor and effort of dead relatives. Allowing people to inherit aristocracy is just as silly as allowing them to inherit nobility--there's no rational reason to be subject to the tyranny of their luck.

the current system of personal and familial responsibility for the raising and development of the young may not be perfect, and even when attempted with the best of intentions it may not always work out, that doesnt mean we should scrap it all and surrender everything to the auctioneer in a giant going out of business/bankruptcy/fire sale to the highest bidder and hope shit works out better next time.

I'm not talking about scrapping any familial system. If you're suggesting inheritance is central to that system, it's not: only 30% of American households inherit any wealth. 70% of households are already living in my reality. Interestingly, the percentage of households receiving inherited wealth and the share of inherited wealth to total wealth are both declining. If not having an inheritance will destroy families, we're already screwed.

Death deprives people of their property--they don't surrender it. Once their ownership is ceased, that property should pass to the highest valuing user, with the funds benefiting all of society. By preventing transfers to the dead's ordained individuals, we prevent the concentration of wealth and achieve a rational and efficient allocation of resources.

the current system already performs magnificently at the job you seem to endorse which is ensuring that if you waork your ass off your whole life, and do alright, when you die the government gets everything "back" because "you didnt build that" well heres a tip for you, my grandfather DID build that.

he bough cheap land, and worked it till it produced. he farmed like a champ, producing high quality crops without developing a crippling mortgage, he built the house with his own hands (and some of my uncles too) he built the barn, he built the fences, and when he died, the government took it all to satisfy his estate taxes. ya see he had a MASSIVE estate, despite having less then 10 grand in the bank. the land was taxed at the assessed value, but sold for less than half that, and as a result when he died, all we had left was his deer rifle and his el camino. that was what his entire life amounted to. a 40 year old rifle and a 12 year old chevy.

if he had been a propper magnate like you imagine all wealthy people to be, he would have had swiss bank accounts, yachts, and teams of tax accountants to ensure that his estate went right where it was intended to go. i guess he should have worked a little harder ehh? and i shouldnt have planned on inheriting a farm...

Your grandfather built that. You didn't; you had nothing to do with it. I don't care what your grandfather owned because it was never yours. You feel entitled to it because he was a family member? Interesting, and you seem bitter about the outcome, but it just forced on you the reality the vast majority of other people know--you didn't get to win the lottery and enjoy a windfall of wealth you didn't earn.

I anticipate you make take issue with the transfer of unearned wealth to society and equate it with individual transfers. Since I would propose using the proceeds of the tax to fund government services and reduce tax rates/eliminate some taxes altogether, the transfer at death could be described as a delayed tax for government services. Ideally, there would be no taxes in life, the burden only coming at death. At present, wealthy people can pass substantial amounts of wealth on death without incurring any tax liability; their tax planners work to ensure that as much money goes untaxed as possible. With a 100% inheritance tax, it makes no difference whether people consume or save. This permits all of the wealth to be taxed and eliminates tax-motivated allocation decisions.

Yeah, tax lawyers and accountants certainly reduce the tax burden the wealthy carry, but those people still pay taxes--most of the tax revenue collected--and voluntary compliance with the code is astonishingly high. The same would be true under this regime (although I would argue that there would be more compliance and more revenue collected, since wealth transfer isn't the priority of most people near death anyway; in life, people put far more effort into reducing their own taxes so that they can have more for personal consumption).

what puzzles me is, all you who think socialism is the best thing ever, all follow up your every grandiose marxist claim with "but im rich, so actually im totally screwing myself over lol, see how self-sacrificing i am?" i dont buy it. your selling the same old "socialism without the marxist filling" that has been so popular in the last 30 years or so, but people who have to bust their asses to keep their heads above water dont believe that shit, only pampered lefty "intellectuals" and second year social studies majors buy marxism any more.

I'm not a socialist or a marxist. When I call myself a free market capitalist, the "free market" is one not dominated by a nobility or aristocracy exercising control based on unearned power or wealth. All people are put on a more equal footing, forced to compete with each other, forced to exist by their own merit, and free to acquire whatever property they can earn. There are no handouts and there are no limits on what individuals can acquire. All I dispense with is the right of a dead person to control property after death to advantage their un-entitled heirs.

youre just another marxist working an angle you think is new and unique, but it still smells just as bad as the intellectual vanguard, the agrarian vanguard, and the anarcho-nonsense that has been trotted out so many times before.

You seem to have developed a penchant for accusing me of being something I'm not. Do point out the Marxism, because I don't embrace its premises or its tenants. Yes, we would both deny people inheritance, but that commonality doesn't immediately translate into Marxism.

 

[deprave]

I would say that your some sort of satanist because you believe that slavery is okay and morally correct, in light of your response to me pointing out that its not.

 

[tokeprep]

I would say that your some sort of satanist because you believe that slavery is okay and morally correct, in light of your response to me pointing out that its not.

I suggested that we're all "slaves" because our physical needs betray our freedom of contract; individuals are forced to compromise their preferences and others can take advantage. I see no moral problem in that because it results in a market price, which is whatever amount people are willing to accept in exchange for survival.

If you mean slavery in the sense of people owning other people, that's entirely different. A human being forcefully interfering with the personal freedom of another human being is unacceptable; an individual compromising his preferences to meet his own physical needs is not the same. Both relationships may be involuntary, in a sense, but the latter individual still retains the choice--they can seek better offers or effort to subsist.

 

[Dr Kynes]

Your grandfather built that. You didn't; you had nothing to do with it. I don't care what your grandfather owned because it was never yours. You feel entitled to it because he was a family member? Interesting, and you seem bitter about the outcome, but it just forced on you the reality the vast majority of other people know--you didn't get to win the lottery and enjoy a windfall of wealth you didn't earn.

interstitial marxist blather snipped for brevity.

You seem to have developed a penchant for accusing me of being something I'm not. Do point out the Marxism, because I don't embrace its premises or its tenants. Yes, we would both deny people inheritance, but that commonality doesn't immediately translate into Marxism.

actually i worked on that farm every summer and every holiday when i wasnt in school. so did my uncles who predeceased their father. your presumptuous implication that i was some silverspoon twat waiting for the old gaffer to croak so i could live in luxury is ridiculous.

everything he built, everything his sons helped build and everything i worked for in my youth vanished in a puff of red tape and it all became the property of the government who in fact DID NOT BUILD SHIT!

you ARE a marxist, you argue for collectivization and redistribution, just you want it to wind up in the hands of The Party by simply waiting for the bourgeois to die, and THEN jacking them for their shit.
you even dismissed Plato's refutation of your arguments with a wave of your hand, but Plato is not so easily dismissed.

he still trounces your assertions and demolishes your premise by proposing that his students explain EXACTLY how they would enact their bold fresh new ideas and letting them see for themselves that that shit just results in tyranny.

claiming youre not a marxist is the new hotness for marxists, but when you declare with absolute selfassured confidence that "You Didnt Build That" and "It Belongs To Society Anyway" you prove yourself to be a marxist.

 

[tokeprep]

actually i worked on that farm every summer and every holiday when i wasnt in school. so did my uncles who predeceased their father. your presumptuous implication that i was some silverspoon twat waiting for the old gaffer to croak so i could live in luxury is ridiculous.

everything he built, everything his sons helped build and everything i worked for in my youth vanished in a puff of red tape and it all became the property of the government who in fact DID NOT BUILD SHIT!

Then ask for some equity or assert the quasi-existence of such equity. Regardless, the situation you describe is an unusual one--most people aren't in your place.

you ARE a marxist, you argue for collectivization and redistribution, just you want it to wind up in the hands of The Party by simply waiting for the bourgeois to die, and THEN jacking them for their shit.
you even dismissed Plato's refutation of your arguments with a wave of your hand, but Plato is not so easily dismissed.

he still trounces your assertions and demolishes your premise by proposing that his students explain EXACTLY how they would enact their bold fresh new ideas and letting them see for themselves that that shit just results in tyranny.

I argue for the living to enjoy property rights and for the dead to enjoy none. The disposition of the property of the dead does not destroy free enterprise; I doubt it would have any negative effect at all, since it's not a serious or significant motivation that incentivizes wealth creation. There's nothing radical about not having an inheritance; it's reality for most people. No, people wouldn't like it, but they would get over it, and they would have no choice but to work damn hard for themselves, which is exactly what I want.

Indeed, I assert that inheritance has negative economic effects: it leaves property in the hands of people who are disinterested or not qualified to manage it. As real examples, I just heard a partner at KPMG talk about the fact that many of their clients are family-owned businesses being poorly managed by second or later generation owners; as another, my boyfriend's mom inherited a home 2 years ago, worth at least $100,000, and has refused to rent or sell it, paying taxes on it and allowing it to deteriorate. Fates like these result in economic losses that would be avoided if we immediately sold property to those who valued it.

claiming youre not a marxist is the new hotness for marxists, but when you declare with absolute selfassured confidence that "You Didnt Build That" and "It Belongs To Society Anyway" you prove yourself to be a marxist.

It only belongs to society when a person dies. You're decrying socialism and Marxism for taking property away from people who earned it and distributing it to those who didn't, but inheritance is exactly the same--the distribution of property from someone who earned it to someone who didn't. (I hinted earlier that a family farm might be a special circumstance and stand by that here; perhaps individuals could be entitled to equity value, but this would have to be priced at arm's length, just as happens now with transfer pricing in foreign tax credits, or in prohibiting related individuals from recognizing capital losses in related-party sales. The vast majority of inherited property is entirely unearned, so I don't think the issue is terribly significant.) What's the difference? That your relative favored you, and somehow that's more right than not permitting such favor?

You'll assert property rights, even for the dead. Property rights are sensible and justifiable because they promote economic activity and efficiency; society has more wealth with property rights than it has without. If transfer to heirs on death doesn't motivate economic activity or create additional societal wealth, why should we enshrine it as a property right?

For the record, I favor ignoring many wishes of the dead that would impair the wealth of the living. If a property owner ordered their houses to be burned down, their fields salted, their power plant shut down, whatever, I would forbid such actions to actually be carried out (the law already does this in most places). Absolute freedom here is indefensible. The living should not perpetuate such senseless destruction, just as they should not tolerate nobility or aristocracy that demands to transfer its position to those who haven't earned it.

 

[echelon1k1]

actually i worked on that farm every summer and every holiday when i wasnt in school. so did my uncles who predeceased their father. your presumptuous implication that i was some silverspoon twat waiting for the old gaffer to croak so i could live in luxury is ridiculous.

everything he built, everything his sons helped build and everything i worked for in my youth vanished in a puff of red tape and it all became the property of the government who in fact DID NOT BUILD SHIT!

The man loves his labels... So you fucked with Uncle Sam and he took your farm. Beautiful!

 

[deprave]

I suggested that we're all "slaves" because our physical needs betray our freedom of contract; individuals are forced to compromise their preferences and others can take advantage. I see no moral problem in that because it results in a market price, which is whatever amount people are willing to accept in exchange for survival.

If you mean slavery in the sense of people owning other people, that's entirely different. A human being forcefully interfering with the personal freedom of another human being is unacceptable; an individual compromising his preferences to meet his own physical needs is not the same. Both relationships may be involuntary, in a sense, but the latter individual still retains the choice--they can seek better offers or effort to subsist.

"A human being forcefully interfering with the personal freedom of another human being is unacceptable" indeed, therefore your conclusion that people can't have "Absolute Freedom" and that government should forcefully take it from people is morally corrupt, Slavery is wrong regardless of if the slave accepts it or not. These thoughts of yours (and the majority) they are completely morally corrupt.