Dealing with ultra-libertarian idiocy?

[K. A. Pital]

The "transaction costs are zero, externalities are zero" is the biggest and most damning approximation of classic economy. Labour needs to be re-educated to allow it to re-orient for new capital investment places, and transported often, for which it has no funds.

Being young and mobile does not save you actually unless you're qualified. The ease of restrictions for qualified labour mobility has created extreme situations - qualified labour flight from Latin American smaller countries can constitute a large percent of the educated, thus leaving unqualified labourers there and thereby increasing wealth of country A to which qualified labour flees, and utterly crushing both present and future economic prospects of country B from which it flees. And all unqualified labour there is fucked, or, more easily, enslaved by economic circumstances that are truly beyond their reach.

Does your average libertarian think that mass socialist revolutions arose for no fucking reason? They arose precisely due to that reason, people being captured as wage slaves by economic circumstances.

[Kanastrous]

The fact that people were able to organize and establish a state, to me suggests that they would have been able to organize and provide the services it renders without having to create the state itself.

This impresses me as being akin to suggesting that if some people wanted to ride down the highway at 55 mph, and were able to organize the design and construction of an automobile for the purpose, then they should have somehow been able to come up with something that serves the exact purpose of that automobile, using the same organizational tools, and the same principles, without actually having built one.

Someone here is being terribly stupid.

I won't rule out the possibility that it's me.

[K. A. Pital]

The fact that people were able to organize and establish a state, to me suggests that they would have been able to organize and provide the services it renders without having to create the state itself.

Wooow, how did I miss that particular gem. I guess our defender of human inventiveness just doesn't like the fact that the state is the best invention and therefore it thrives through millenia.

Believe me, MartianHoplite, if people could organize and provide the services of the state without the state itself, such a stateless organization would arise and compete with the states as an alternate social structure.

So far no alternate social structure competes with a state. States of various structure compete with each other. Stateless libertopia does not. Exist.

[Darth Wong]

I've been too busy to post on the board much lately, but I would just like to point something out here:

Point 1: like all libertarians, MartianHoplite has constructed an ethical system which is completely devoid of the human quality of sympathy for others. Every time someone points out that people would be victimized under his system, he tries to prove that somehow, they deserve it. Not because they're evil, but because they're not doing what is necessary to survive in his system.

Point 2: like Marx, MartianHoplite is making factual declarations about the thinking and motivations of millions of workers in our economy but he obviously has no experience with them. If he did, he would know that he is quite simply full of shit when he declares that they would all prefer cash over benefits. A collective health-care plan is far superior to cash because it is much more difficult to get health coverage as an individual than as part of a collective group, especially if you have any kind of condition which may make insurance companies look askew at you. This is not mere speculation, but is backed up by the fact that workers and unions routinely demand such benefits.

Point 3: like all libertarians, MartianHoplite continually states his speculation about the behaviour of a libertarian society as if it is established fact. He keeps saying that if A happens, then B will happen, but never feels compelled to provide any evidence to substantiate this speculation.

I'm guessing he's a high-school kid, because no adult with a job would be so ignorant as to declare that every employee would trade in all of his health-care benefits for a salary increase, in defiance of all observable facts to the contrary. For that matter, I'm guessing that most libertarians are similarly unemployed and inexperienced. Anyone who had experience with unreasonable employers would know that it's not enough to have the option to quit. You need some kind of legislation because there are far too many scenarios where a person does not have that kind of mobility.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm guessing he's a high-school kid

He's a university student, which is evident from his first thread post. That's certain. Certainly there's little work experience and yet less experience with making savings as a worker through "cash".

[Illuminatus Primus]

Bet you his parents are well-off, he's/his family are very healthy, etc. I mean how anyone with any chronic illnesses in the family who isn't rich/a doctor/doctor in the family could believe this horseshit is beyond me.

[Kanastrous]

I don't know about that.

Church history seems to demonstrate that people can maintain unswerving belief in the virtue of systems that are absolutely inimical to their own welfare.

And it seems to me that this is a similar belief-system kind of argument, to someone defending a religious construct.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Church history involves people accepting axioms of faith absurd on the face of it, and absolute in character, and engendered before the person could even be sapient or conscious. In this case, he must've dealt with the logic and content of his ideology as a young adult, and its difficult to sympathize with that if your mother has cancer and your family simply doesn't make enough money.

[Junghalli]

A corporation is not in social contract with citizenry, mister obvious.

In fairness, most ancient governments were basically little more than extortion machines to one degree or another. As far as the average peasant was concerned it was mostly a matter of you paying off your Lord so he wouldn't have his thugs break your kneecaps.

[K. A. Pital]

In fairness, most ancient governments were basically little more than extortion machines to one degree or another.

Well, essentially yes, but that is only due to small surplus. Contracts would have been harsh, wars for essentials - a given rule. A lord was to protect his people against things like robbing-to-zero, or outright 90-100% slaughter.

Essentially reverting to this "Wild West" stance with tribal communities being formed that fight for the very basic essentials is the reality outcome of libertarianism.

[Junghalli]

If I'm starving right now, but the grain seller decides to sell additional tons of grain to the rich guy across the street since he can pay more than me (I can pay nothing since I have nothing), so that this guy can overconsume while I die being in the lower end of the demand curve - I'm sure that a knowledgeable economist should understand that - I'm not going to "negotiate" or "trade" with either grain producer or the rich fuck who bought additional grain and thus by his demand put me out of the curve.

Well, that's not strictly true, you still have one negotiable asset: your body. You could trade manual labor for food or prostitute yourself.

Of course, neither of those would be very attractive options. In the first scenario your employer would hold all the cards, since you need his money much more than he needs your labor, especially since there are undoubtedly thousands of other people he could get who would do the job as well as you (it's very doubtful you have any valuable skills - it you did, why are you starving?). He could basically pay you whatever he wanted - you're desperate and have little recourse but to take whatever he offers - and unless he's a generous sort you'll almost certainly end up being paid very little indeed.

As for the second, I don't think I need to explain why giving blow jobs for bread isn't exactly the most attractive idea. Especially since, let's face it, as a starving bum you're unlikely to have the sort of body that will command a high price.

[K. A. Pital]

You could trade manual labor for food

Only if there's demand for my manual labour, obviously. Essentially the choice between dying and living as a wage slave, and the latter is preferable. Also, there's the bum option if we include the larger society into our picture instead of just those three agents.

P.S. I don't think you need to explain to me what life as a bum means. I went through this, sadly - but perhaps for the best. Though, of course, I never resorted to prostitution. But collecting human waste wasn't exactly fluffy liberto-bunnies either.

[Junghalli]

Well, essentially yes, but that is only due to small surplus. Contracts would have been harsh, wars for essentials - a given rule. A lord was to protect his people against things like robbing-to-zero, or outright 90-100% slaughter.

Yes, protection rackets use similar justifications.

My point is governments are no less fundamentally exploitive than corporations. They both operate off a contract (either "pay taxes and we'll protect you" or "work for us and we'll pay you") and basically exist to perpetuate themselves and benefit those that run them first and foremost. But it's really just nitpicking.

[Kanastrous]

My point is governments are no less fundamentally exploitive than corporations. They both operate off a contract (either "pay taxes and we'll protect you" or "work for us and we'll pay you") and basically exist to perpetuate themselves and benefit those that run them first and foremost. But it's really just nitpicking.

At least the foundational documents for most governments (constitutional ones, anyway, and AFAIK most Republics) encode less-exploitive and more beneficial terms between rulers and ruled, than do the missions statements of most for-profit corporations.

[K. A. Pital]

My point is governments are no less fundamentally exploitive than corporations.

Perhaps in the case of racket - ransom governments that is true. However, that is not true of all governments. Were the modern governments existing for their own enrichment, government officials would be basking in wealth like corporate shareholders do. That only happens in countries with profoundly corrupt governments, where a transfusion of government and business has happened and monetary corruption is near absolute - Africa, Russia, et cetera. A government official receives a wage, not a profit, from operating the government. The term "public servant" isn't a void term - it describes a public occupancy in a social service machine.

Thus a fundamental difference exists between a non-corrupt government official and a shareholder. Also, a government official can be prosecuted for using his administrative leverage to his profit - which isn't what he is supposed to do. A corporation cannot, since it's goal is profit for the shareholders.

Also, a government official, unless by act of treason or other criminal act, like theft, cannot just take national property and fly off to Bahamas. Well, if he would that would mean the collapse of the state, treason and theft. A shareholder of a corporation can, and there will be nothing criminal in that - just as no possibility to prosecute him in any way. After all, he just took away his property.

[brianeyci]

For that matter, I'm guessing that most libertarians are similarly unemployed and inexperienced.

Probably. If you're a rich fuck who sits at home all day and don't need to pay for rent since you inherited a house and don't have a family to take care of, you're more likely to protect your own interests. Then your only real fixed costs are taxes and food and whatever you use for entertainment to pass your time like the Internet or gardening or reading. Then, you'd be a lot more likely to consider taxes as evil, especially if you think everybody else can share your same lifestyle. The same goes for students. Most have no idea the cost it takes to survive.

The overarching principle of libertarianism is you pay for what you use. When confronted with the dilemma of someone who deserves something but can't pay, MartianHoplite keeps ignoring the question or says the person doesn't deserve it because he isn't surviving in his proposed system.

[Darth Servo]

For that matter, I'm guessing that most libertarians are similarly unemployed and inexperienced.

Probably. If you're a rich fuck who sits at home all day and don't need to pay for rent since you inherited a house and don't have a family to take care of, you're more likely to protect your own interests. Then your only real fixed costs are taxes and food and whatever you use for entertainment to pass your time like the Internet or gardening or reading. Then, you'd be a lot more likely to consider taxes as evil, especially if you think everybody else can share your same lifestyle. The same goes for students. Most have no idea the cost it takes to survive.

Thats certainly my 38-year-old, still-lives-with-his-parents brother in a nutshell. The guy hasn't held down a stead job in nearly 10 years. Except he isn't rich. Just a delusional bum. He essentially doesn't have ANY costs.

The overarching principle of libertarianism is you pay for what you use. When confronted with the dilemma of someone who deserves something but can't pay, MartianHoplite keeps ignoring the question or says the person doesn't deserve it because he isn't surviving in his proposed system.

And to further pile on the irony, these idiots, often being ultra conservatives tend to out-right reject evolution.

[Darth Wong]

For that matter, I'm guessing that most libertarians are similarly unemployed and inexperienced.

Probably. If you're a rich fuck who sits at home all day and don't need to pay for rent since you inherited a house and don't have a family to take care of, you're more likely to protect your own interests. Then your only real fixed costs are taxes and food and whatever you use for entertainment to pass your time like the Internet or gardening or reading. Then, you'd be a lot more likely to consider taxes as evil, especially if you think everybody else can share your same lifestyle. The same goes for students. Most have no idea the cost it takes to survive.

The overarching principle of libertarianism is you pay for what you use. When confronted with the dilemma of someone who deserves something but can't pay, MartianHoplite keeps ignoring the question or says the person doesn't deserve it because he isn't surviving in his proposed system.

It also works for people who have just gotten out of school and got their first jobs, but haven't had it long enough to understand the way things really work. These are the same people who are so naive that they honestly think private industry is a true meritocracy; it means they don't understand office politics yet. And of course, it goes without saying that they don't have kids or any other real responsibilities.

There were a lot of people in school who deluded themselves into thinking that they were totally self-sufficient. It takes a while to realize how inter-connected our society really is, and how that has benefited all of us. In short, it is naivete, ignorance, and youthful arrogance, and nothing more.

[The Yosemite Bear]

now there's another thought for them Rynd lovers. What about children?

They have no resources of their own, they simply parasite off of others for an extensive period of time. now Where does education, and resources come to them eventually?

[Vendetta]

The overarching principle of libertarianism is you pay for what you use. When confronted with the dilemma of someone who deserves something but can't pay, MartianHoplite keeps ignoring the question or says the person doesn't deserve it because he isn't surviving in his proposed system.

I thought part of the concept is that there is no such thing as "deserve". Under a Libertarian system you are only entitled to that which you have the means to produce or trade for. Anything other than that makes you a parasite.

[The Yosemite Bear]

The overarching principle of libertarianism is you pay for what you use. When confronted with the dilemma of someone who deserves something but can't pay, MartianHoplite keeps ignoring the question or says the person doesn't deserve it because he isn't surviving in his proposed system.

I thought part of the concept is that there is no such thing as "deserve". Under a Libertarian system you are only entitled to that which you have the means to produce or trade for. Anything other than that makes you a parasite.

exactlyandthus there can be no children in a libertarian society


because children don't produce anything.

[Starglider]

exactlyandthus there can be no children in a libertarian society

because children don't produce anything.

There are enough gaping flaws with market fundamentalism that you don't have to resort to idiotic strawmen like this. As MartianHoplite noted, fanatical Libertarians hold that the market is the only valid way of getting things you want (and need). But it makes no claim about what you should want, only what you cannot do (inititate force). The market fundamentalist notion of private charities providing bountiful public goods to the underprivilidged is clearly a ridiculous fantasy. But people wanting children, and wanting their children to do well, is a perfectly reasonable and compatible goal. Indeed I've already pointed out that this is perfectly justified even if you're completely selfish - as long as that selfishness is at the genetic level (which is what evolution has been reinforcing for oh, a billion years) rather than the individual one.

This is the single thing that consistently annoys me about SDN, morons come on with completely broken and easy-to-shoot-down arguments, but then some SDN people who should know better start spouting idiotic and completely unecessary strawmen - which they usually get away with because everyone is focusing on dogpiling the original moron.

[Covenant]

I'm simply saying that if even an abusive and tyrannical government can be successfully opposed than it makes little sense to be scared of a much less powerful organization, like a corporation….

If it’s true, as some claim, that an individual can't protect themselves against abuse by other individuals or businesses, then how can an individual protect themselves against a state?

Generally, through, it’s unwise to trade a functional system for a different functional system that is untested and has not been shown to be as equally functional. This problem arises from the Ye Olde Communiste Probleme where you had a very reasonable, quite sensible, and ethically superior form of governance replacing an old one and shortly thereafter descending into utter disrepair and people fucked it up.

The system as we have it, with a large government body stretched between regions, states, communities and so on, requires a government either to be so oppressive as to control all aspects, or to be willing to surrender general tasks to local groups. In such a way, government often becomes oversight for state and local groups, down to city or community council meetings which decide thus-and-so laws.

An advocate for governance is not an advocate for totalitarianism anymore than an advocate for libertarianism is an advocate for dystopian cyberpunk Microsoft City style oppression. So fear isn’t a strong motivator, it’s just that you need rather good evidence to overthrow an entire social order.

When I use the term "anarchy" I mean by it an orderly society without a state. Some people use "anarchy" as a synonym for "chaos." For that meaning, I simply use "chaos". So yes I do assume a stateless society is an anarchy, but I don't mean exactly the same thing by it as you do.

I have nothing against government, regulation or social welfare, so long as they are arranged on a voluntary basis.

This is not what I’m saying though—chaos is chaos, yes. But a not all Stateless societies are Anarchies. Here’s a segment from a children’s study guide on Africa, the first thing I found, that describes a stateless setup.

Decentralized or stateless political societies in Africa were often made up of a group of neighboring towns or villages that had no political connection with a larger kingdom or nation. Most stateless and decentralized societies did not have a system of chiefs. However, some of these societies had chiefs. In these societies the position of chief was weak and was often not hereditary. Do you remember what this term means? Chiefs were usually selected by a group of elders. In such a system, chiefs were selected not based on their family connections, but on their reputation as person who contributed to the welfare of the group.

The defining characteristic here is size. Africa was a source of much of the research for stateless societies, but these are not a fantastic example, since Africa is a goddamn mess, if you haven’t noticed. These small groups avoid being called Citystates because they’re relatively small, and though a stateless society can spread across a wide area and maintain effective economies, these are not industrial powers that have more than a rudimentary need for organization outside of the village level.

They also seem about one armed conflict away from forming a Peloponnesian League and a Delian League. Furthermore, these groups rely primarily on violence to enforce their laws. Being outcast from a community is more-or-less a death sentence. Banishment is merely a clean form of execution, or at best, giving your troubles to someone else.

The debt collection system today works in exactly this way. If you default on a small debt, the state will do nothing or very nearly nothing about it. Creditors, however, will share information about you through credit bureaus, and your access to further credit, no matter how far away you try and run, will be cut off until you settle the debt. You will also suffer additional consequences, such as difficulties seeking employment or renting housing.

I’m not sure how this is beneficial or any less punitive. While it’s an effective deterrent against bad business practices, this is an existing deterrent already, and it fails to accomplish the task at times. The Federal Government has a more effective and wide-ranging net for the capture and trial of a criminal than a credit agency, so how am I to expect superior performance from a Libertarian Anarchy whose elements have no political obligation to each other? Will they have extradition treaties with each other? A central police force, surely not? What if the deed I did in City A is not outlawed in City B?

Again, this is the problem. A Libertarian legal system sounds superior. If I steal, I have to give the goods back and they garnish the majority of my wages for a time until restitution has been paid in full. If I cannot pay or am not able to work steadily they’ll compel me to enter a Labor Camp where I am put to work on something useful and the proceeds are garnished until I am free to leave. That certainly sounds better than locking them all up with each other, doesn’t it?

It also starts creating problems. Slave labor in the form of criminals producing viable goods is one thing, but how much of the money goes to the businessman who runs the labor camp—he’s got operating expenses, after all. How much goes to the victim? What happens to the victim’s other properties in the meantime? Regardless, the idea of repayment in money—in some form—certainly seems more fair, in some senses. We assume, of course, that the person has some viable form of labor or service they can provide to generate income—something children and the uneducated poor may not outside of manual labor—and it always gets down to that old scary situation of murder, or rape, or some other crime for which there is no dollar amount that seems like a fair repayment.

I’ll quote from RESTITUTION: JUSTICE IN A STATELESS SOCIETY (google it) about the eventual end-result of a Libertarian murder-handling system. While there are no police to follow up on the crimes of the unknown, such as old lonely men and women or orphans and such, they assume that there’s going to be some variety of Murder Insurance. Murder Insurance would be cheap, they would say, because the risk of being murdered is low and therefore the payout would be high for a very low cost. Due to this, no Murder Insurance Company wants to ever pay out, and would take precautions to see that no shareholders are ever killed—or would compel you to:

In turn, the insurance company will either insist that the insured party is affiliated to a protection agency (a private police), or the insurance company will affiliate itself the insured party to such a protection agency, on the ground that a protected party is less likely to be assaulted. If the protection agency failed to solve too many cases, it would rapidly lose clients, so it is in its interest to track any and all aggressors, whoever the victim is, in order to maintain a competitive advantage.

This is again lovely for someone with money to hire their own security force, once more, but not so good for people like Stas and I. I can’t even afford to have a decent Health Insurance package—hopefully the market will solve that by convincing employers to offer it in order to hire more people. Or they’ll just do what they’re doing now and fucking us with lower pay, longer hours, and less coverage.

Furthermore, this once again fails to address the problems that are more pressing in society than some goddamn rich old white fuck’s woes about the taxman. This would further push the ghettos into ghettodom, since not only is there a great amount of danger inherent in such an area, but that this danger is going to make the goddamn Murder Insurance rates go through the fucking roof. And since I may have Murder insurance, but not Mugged insurance or Raped insurance, there are several offenses that could easily be thrown at me without much chance of the bad guys getting caught. This is why, if you’re sick and need health insurance, it’s not easy to get cheap and affordable health insurance. If you’re in an area with low murder rates, such as a rich person’s gated community, your Violence Protection Agency will be much cheaper than it would be on Skid Row, where you need it.

And buddy, if you believe Christian Michael’s assertion “I would suggest also that many
charitable institutions will buy a premium on the life of small children and destitute individuals, on the ground that it is their charitable purpose to do so, and that, for a small premium, they stand to collect a sizeable capital, if, against all odds, one of their insured party is indeed murdered,” then the idea of Murder Investment is not only a logical recourse, but the only one. And, furthermore, I can’t see how those people would be—in any way—obligated to my security. They are directly obligated to act against my security so they can benefit, and it would only be the Insurance company that attempts to secure my safety.

If, like with the Auto Industry, they discover it’s cheaper to pay for the occasional murder than to take protection out in my favor, then I’m fucked several ways.

There are, however, a number of flaws with the way these are integrated into existing states, and some questions about whether or not they even can be made to work reliably. It's taken little more than two centuries for the US Constitution to essentially be redefined into irrelevance.

This is pretty irrelevant. Any ideology eventually descends into a spiral of reinterpretation. Even for something as apparently ‘Written In Stone’ as the Ten Commandments, you see not only alternate versions of the commandments being written (the Jewish and Catholic sets differing) but the entire meaning of these laws, and their other associated laws, spinning off into “God Wants You To Be Rich” sermons on TV. A government that is essentially a self-contained adversarial system will slow the abuse of laws moreso than a system in which the laws are inherently arbitrary. A small community is more than willing to fudge some laws, especially if they think it’s justified.

Government court? There are powerful lobbies that seek to keep the government's courts as overcrowded and inefficient as they are. The entire legal profession, for one, derive their livelihoods from an adversarial court system where rulings are made not on the basis of commonly accepted standards of justice, or even necessarily, written statute, but often merely on how much money someone has to spend on representation. Many businesses - insurance companies are notorious - know that they can screw people and that the expense and time of taking the matter to court will prevent them from seeking redress. Do you think you're going to go up against the entire legal profession and the insurance industry and that the government is going to take your side? If you do, you're fooling yourself. You're never going to be able to put more pressure on the government for meaningful reform than those who benefit from the status quo can bring to bear on resisting it.

The rise of private arbitration can be directly attributed to the inefficiency and expense of the public courts. The [url]http://www.adr.org]American Arbitration Association[/url] settles commercial disputes worth billions of dollars annually and has the authority to award legally binding settlements. Even before the AAA was backed up by government statutes, it was able to secure compliance by refusing to do business with parties that refused to abide by its rulings. The threat of being cut off from the AAA and having to use the public courts was enough to secure compliance in almost all cases. The fact that it's cheaper to lose your case before a private arbitrator than win before a public judge speak volumes.

I’m leaving this section quoted because I agree with it, and it’s one of the big issues with a Libertarian system where I’m depending on private courts and Insurance Companies for things like the already-mentioned Murder insurance. I love that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing an Insurance Company will weasel their way out of my murder-payment the same way they do now, only with less oversight, so people like the Katrina victims won’t only lose their house, but their lives as well. That’s the Invisible Middle Finger of the Market.

You’re also forgetting that even though a big corporation can throw money around at an individual, you should be arguing that abused won’t happen under a Libertarian system, not that I’m screwed either way. At least, as is, there is now the method of getting the public and Government to intervene, and if I have a good-looking case against a big company, a lawyer stands to make a lot of money in the future even if he works merely for a share of the winnings. It’s also a good way to advance yourself in other ways. Essentially, the system as-is already exploits Self Interest for the good of people. Libertarian self-interest in the form of Objectivism isn’t without merit as a sociological theory, but let’s not leap onto the Anarchy bandwagon too fast, shall we?

I like the BBC and the content they produce. However, while American media is mostly rubbish, we have our own nuggets of brilliance. The Daily Show is some of the best shit ever. Of course, that's on subscription-based cable TV, not a public good at all, which just goes to show that almost any service can be provided in a number of different ways, and usually they aren't all subject to the "public goods" problem.

The Daily Show is hardly an excuse for a proper news channel. It’s disturbing that a Comedy Channel has the best and most informative news network on there, but I’d say that’s due to the Free Market No Oversight of FOX and the way they’ve gutted CNN’s market share. The only other network doing a good job of catching attention is MSNBC with Keith, and that is again a fairly snarky approach. They’re appealing to a liberal, or at least anti-establishment emotional streak. I may think they’re on the ball, but please, the only reason the Daily Show is anything more than a satire is because the actual media—devoid of a Fairness Doctrine or oversight into the validity of their news—bows to the market pressure to sell sensationalist, appealing news rather than good news.

No, we're just looking at the two different cases. The intent is to demonstrate that it is at least possible for mutual agreements to be honored without an external, coercive authority. If we can establish that, then we can move on to the task of looking at specific arrangements and institutions that can be built up on a voluntary, contractual basis, to secure the fulfillment of contracts.

You’ve failed to do that though. Even in the most general case, Public Outcry and Outcast Status are forces of an external, coercive public opinion. That's a form of authority, since you can either submit to the social norms of your chosen community or leave, and either way it is similar to a "Love it or leave it" form of authority. One which, mind you, is far less fair or even-handed than their legal-minded analogs.

And even in the cases where government falsely applies such forces, like when Walt Disney got many of his animators Blacklisted when he claimed they were Communists to Senator McCarthy, they’re much more often applied due to an individual self-interest as a breach of law. Disney, afterall, didn’t want to pay them more—and that’s why he ousted them. He also hired, free market style, a Chicago mafia strongman to break their strike. Failing that, he hired scabs to animate Dumbo, thus leading to the famous “We’re Gonna Hit the Big Boss for a Raise!” with the clowns scene, and the “Happy, Hearty Roustabouts” propaganda songs being shoehorned into the plot. That and he wouldn’t let women animate (only paint the animated cells) or hire any variety of dark-skinned person. Without a government agency, that’s really how it would have stayed too. Huzzah for peculiar institutions and unique ways-of-life.

[Patrick Degan]

I'm simply saying that if even an abusive and tyrannical government can be successfully opposed than it makes little sense to be scared of a much less powerful organization, like a corporation….

If it’s true, as some claim, that an individual can't protect themselves against abuse by other individuals or businesses, then how can an individual protect themselves against a state?

More simple-mindedness on your part. Just no end to your errors, is there?

A tyrannical government can be opposed successfully, but it requires a population driven to revolt and a government which has become too fossilised in its methods to effectively rule and a defection of a significant portion of the military to the rebels. The comparison to corporations in this scholia is not a valid one because corporations can commit much abuse against ordinary persons without grossly breaking the law in the process, and nothing they do engenders revolutionary violence except in the most extreme situations of kleptocracy. But an individual on his own cannot hope to marshal the resources needed to fight a company just from the sheer expense of a legal fight and the time required. This is why a government must be strong enough to act for the common people as a whole against a powerfully singular entity such as the corporation, by bringing the full force of law to the table.

Understand, nitwit? The corporation, as a singular entity (so defined in law), can only be checked by the power of the law as wielded by the state in the name of the people.

[The Yosemite Bear]

example Haliburton and Dow can kill 80,000 people through their subsidary Union Carbide, and even the government of the people that were killed may find it hard to bring them up on charges. (if you don't know what I'm talking about gooogle "Bopal Massacare"