Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
I am a free market advocate. I'm a more effective advocate than wing-nuts like zendari will ever be, and I might even be as effective as you are.
Zendari is not a free market advocate. He is a supporter of the Bush administration and the fascist warfare state. Effectiveness is not what I seek. I seek the truth. I'm almost certain that the free market message that classical liberal/minarchist libertarians such as Michael Badnarik, Richard Epstein or Milton Friedman is more 'edible' for the average person. But I am not going to lie and say something that I do not think is true for a more 'effective' message. I have absolutely no qualms with being branded as a 'radical.'
I don't believe in 'free markets with limits' BS, I just think that when markets lead to obviously bad outcomes, there should be a mechanism in place to fix that (edit - i.e. no pre-set limits on market freedoms). You must realize by now that the driving force behind the problems of a state is the need to give power to individuals: power which can be directly used for personal gain, or sold to others under the table.
There is realy only one difference between this and the power of free market '800 pound gorillas'. In a free market, there is no coercive mechanism available to defeat an 800 pound gorilla, but in government there is (elections, revolutions, etc). Of course the real-world outcome is that people are too scared to take action against their government most of the time, and so governments only fail with about the same frequency as gorillas.
If all the state did was act as a mechanism to prevent bad outcomes in the free market I wouldn't have much of a problem with that. But in every single case the government has attempted to perform such a task it has failed and merely abused its power. In the free market there could very well be a coercive mechanism to defeat an '800 pound gorilla.' It is called private law and security production.
I do have a question for your philosophical position that I've ben meaning to ask though. I understand the concept of supporting liberty: freedom of movement, speech, action, etc. But where is the natural basis of property rights? As far as I can tell, property rights extend only as far as your willingness to defend your property, which really makes me wonder how it can be called a 'right'.
I'm not an advocate of a mystical 'objective' a priori theory of natural property rights. Other anarcho-capitalists have taken this route, such as Hans-Hoppe, Walter Block and Murray Rothbard. And in that area I part company with them. The reason why I part company with them is that I do not believe that it is epistemologically possible to define precisely what 'property' is. Hence, my theory of private property rights is very simple: simply tweak the existing understanding of property rights.
99% of people's understanding of property rights is coherent and in practice has had very good empirical results. For the most part this understanding has two parts: homesteading and transferral. For instance, I homestead a piece of property by building something on it and I may transfer it to someone by making a conscious decision to give it to them. The other 1% that is incoherent and contradictory is the part where people make exceptions to their normal practice of respecting property rights by allowing politicians to force people to give up their private property.
The reason why allowing politicians to tax us (and regulate us) is an incoherent and contradictory doctrine is basically two fold. First, it is incoherent because the entire foundation of absolute governmental authority is based on pure mysticism. Second, it is contradictory because people believe that they must obey the state even in instances in which they have made a conscious conclusion that they should not.
Therefore, my theory of private property rights is simply that the rules of private property rights should be borne out through a collective bargaining process of individual moral ideals. Instead of voting in elections for politicians to steal my property, one who desires my property should have to come and get it by expending their
own resources. Through this bargaining process, what constitutes 'private property' and what constitutes a violation of private property will be decided through individual moral ideals and individual expenditures of resources.
In a nutshell:
Construction of an objective and deontological theory of private property rights is impossible.
but
The state itself is a logical contradiction and based on mysticism as well.
therefore
People should reject the state and eliminate the state in order to re-adjust their understanding of private property rights.
and
A coherent and sound system of private property rights should be constructed in a free market (anarcho-capitalism) where individuals expend their own resources and exercise decisions solely on the behalf of their own moral beliefs in order to enforce their belief system of private property rights.
