In A Libertarian state how would the poor survive?

[hendrix]

Sure it is. I could mooch off my parents, my sister, my in-laws. I could live in a hut and survive off what I could hunt/forage. I could throw myself on the mercy of the kindness of strangers.

But I'm not the one proposing a stateless, worker controlled system. I'm just trying to figure out how such a system would work.

How are you obtaining food and living quarters (of a reasonable standard) without a) providing value in another area that is quantified using money or b) taking it?

Didn't you just answer your own question?

The point is that a person provides work in order to produce resources - and that person produces the resource as they see fit through the work they do. But in a society in which market wages dictate how much resource a worker acquires, and profit is incurred by minimising wages and maximising produce - the worker simply cannot dictate how much they need to work in order to provide the resources they want i.e. there's not true freedom. You don't really get to say no. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But it is a feature of pretty much any system in which property and resource can be owned individually.

Freedom is not something I believe in anyway it's just a nice principle to recognise.

 

[Spark]

Sure it is. I could mooch off my parents, my sister, my in-laws. I could live in a hut and survive off what I could hunt/forage. I could throw myself on the mercy of the kindness of strangers.

But I'm not the one proposing a stateless, worker controlled system. I'm just trying to figure out how such a system would work.

How are you obtaining food and living quarters (of a reasonable standard) without a) providing value in another area that is quantified using money or b) taking it?

I think these are reasonable questions, but first you have to recognise that for socialists, worker vs corporate/"capitalist" ownership is a moral question about natural justice and - in a sense - property rights, in the same way that PEWS framed libertarian opposition to the state as fundamentally a moral one.

 

[Ausage]

Didn't you just answer your own question?

Well no. I was illustrating the options I have right now in the real world, countering an assertion that those options don't exist. They do, they just suck.

The point is that a person provides work in order to produce resources - and that person produces the resource as they see fit through the work they do. But in a society in which market wages dictate how much resource a worker acquires, and profit is incurred by minimising wages and maximising produce - the worker simply cannot dictate how much they need to work in order to provide the resources they want i.e. there's not true freedom. You don't really get to say no. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But it is a feature of pretty much any system in which property and resource can be owned individually.

Sure, but this is a by-product of (what passes for) of a system based on voluntary transactions. "Market wages" are (or should be) the aggregated value across a society of a particular line of work, based on supply and demand. I might be of the view that I should be paid more or be able to work less, but the only way to do that (without force) is to change the supply and demand equation. If "worker control" is simply people doing so by peaceful means (ie. outputting more/better quality product, doing so in less time or convincing others of the need for said product) then great! If it means people opting into collectives where profit and labour is shared then also fine. However given the extensive history of such terms being used as euphemisms for systems very much predicated on the use of force, I think a clearer explanation of what it means to be for worker control (Socialist) without force would be helpful.

Not looking to be snarky either. I have a view on these matters, but I'm actually pretty genuinely interested to hear ideas on how MF (or yourself) thinks such a system would work.

I take the meta point that you're not "truly free" in an idealistic free market libertopia and I understand you're not advocating for/against either system here. Maybe I'm looking for an answer to a different question.

 

[Spark]

Northern Italy has a region which is full of such businesses (worker co-operatives) ftr. Would be worth reading up how they're doing when I have time.

 

[Ausage]

I think these are reasonable questions, but first you have to recognise that for socialists, worker vs corporate/"capitalist" ownership is a moral question about natural justice and - in a sense - property rights, in the same way that PEWS framed libertarian opposition to the state as fundamentally a moral one.

Yeah and in general terms I'd say I understand where the arguments socialists make come from, though I don't agree with their conclusions.

But the question is whether it's possible to have a socialist society that isn't predicated on force. The closest I'd been able to get to in my head is roughly "a libertarian society with cultural pressures towards philanthropy" which I'd certainly have plenty of sympathy for. We're getting into "worker control of production" though and I'm just not seeing how the "control" gets in there without force (unless we're talking about an abstract point regarding our own time/energy, in which case it seems a bit of a redundant given we currently have that).

 

[Ausage]

Northern Italy has a region which is full of such businesses (worker co-operatives) ftr. Would be worth reading up how they're doing when I have time.

Ftr, a world where people voluntarily enter into such arrangements isn't one I'm opposed to at all. I don't think it would work out that way, but if it did I wouldn't have an issue.

 

[hendrix]

Well no. I was illustrating the options I have right now in the real world, countering an assertion that those options don't exist. They do, they just suck.



Sure, but this is a by-product of (what passes for) of a system based on voluntary transactions. "Market wages" are (or should be) the aggregated value across a society of a particular line of work, based on supply and demand. I might be of the view that I should be paid more or be able to work less, but the only way to do that (without force) is to change the supply and demand equation. If "worker control" is simply people doing so by peaceful means (ie. outputting more/better quality product, doing so in less time or convincing others of the need for said product) then great! If it means people opting into collectives where profit and labour is shared then also fine. However given the extensive history of such terms being used as euphemisms for systems very much predicated on the use of force, I think a clearer explanation of what it means to be for worker control (Socialist) without force would be helpful.

Not looking to be snarky either. I have a view on these matters, but I'm actually pretty genuinely interested to hear ideas on how MF (or yourself) thinks such a system would work.

I take the meta point that you're not "truly free" in an idealistic free market libertopia and I understand you're not advocating for/against either system here. Maybe I'm looking for an answer to a different question.

Honestly, I don't know. I do very much share your wariness towards such terms, and skepticism about the true outcomes of change.

Northern Italy has a region which is full of such businesses (worker co-operatives) ftr. Would be worth reading up how they're doing when I have time.

Would be interesting to see.

 

[sledger]

Tbf you are not truly free in any sociopolitical system. 100% autonomy is a myth.

 

[StephenZA]

Your questions (if I could call them questions - musing maybe?) are very much related.

A country club may have a leadership structures, rules of entry etc, but it doesn't have coercive power. If I don't like the country club, its fees or its rules, I can simply not join. The club could then exclude me from its property, but not impose any of its rules or fees on me. This makes it a voluntary institution as membership is voluntary and its rules only apply to its own property and the people who have voluntarily agreed to them.

A state institution on the other hand has coercive power -- if I don't like the rules, fees or leadership structure of the state, it can impose itself on me anyway, even outside its property. If your argument is in fact that the entire country is the property of the state and that, for example, the state telling me which plants I'm allowed to grow on my own property is in fact no different to the country club telling me which plants I can grow in the garden out of the front of the entrance - as the state is in fact the rightful owner of my house - then you have fully embraced communism (like silentstriker ). Most people don't embrace communism but argue that the involuntary nature of the state is a necessary evil to defend people from bad actors or fight inequality or grow the economy or protect jobs or prevent degeneracy or whatever else they want to outsource their violence/theft/threats to the state to achieve. A small number embrace communism, and even smaller number (including myself and GIMH) think the involuntary nature of the state makes it fundamentally immoral as an institution.

In terms of your other actions, you may be surprised to learn how many of them a voluntaryist would consider entirely voluntary. If no-one is threatening you with violence or theft, or defrauding you, then it's voluntary, at least in a philosophical sense to a voluntaryist. You may work off a different definition and I'm not particularly interested in dictionary wars, but that's certainly what I mean when I use the term, if it helps you understand my posts and where I'm coming from more.

I thought about this a bit; because you talk about coercive powers and I can see how the 'state' being the biggest entity has the largest potential coercive powers. But it is no different from any other organisation in principal, people are coercive not the state entity, and that is my issue. That is why my original statement was not talking about the size of state (which I can see being an issue at times) but that this idea that 'the state' becomes separate entity from a societal point of view, rather than looking at it as a part of society made up by people and of people. Corporations are already a problem and can be just as coercive, and in some parts of the world more, than the state. The only difference between say the modern democratic state and any other large entity is that in the democratic state, there is at least an attempt to (how successful is up for debate) to give people a choice and a say in the running of their 'country'.

In the end everytime I see somebody talk about some idea or entity being at fault for this or other reason I can't understand the detachment that is created, it is people and their behaviour that is at fault, taking advantages of these 'entities' and 'systems' being put into place at the detriment to others; for me any entity would grow and become a problem because that is the nature of people.

The argument over what counts as voluntary actions is broad, I accept that; but this comes down to influence and coercion. But influence and coercion comes from interaction with people and society with their differing opinions, ideals, wants and needs; and I see no practical way with which society exists without some form of interaction causing some form of influence and/or coercion and thus involuntary action, even on a limited basis. Even the very act of removing yourself from a situation to avoid coercion can be seen as involuntary, because you may not have done so without that coercive potential.

Ultimately unless you decide to live by yourself in the middle of a desert, I can't see how 2 people interact without some sort of affect on each other both good and bad as no 2 people are ever the same.

 

[Uppercut]

Northern Italy has a region which is full of such businesses (worker co-operatives) ftr. Would be worth reading up how they're doing when I have time.

If you think that decentralised systems tend to outperform centralised ones, then a true free market would probably be dominated by companies with a structure along those lines.

 

[Prince EWS]

I thought about this a bit; because you talk about coercive powers and I can see how the 'state' being the biggest entity has the largest potential coercive powers. But it is no different from any other organisation in principal, people are coercive not the state entity, and that is my issue. That is why my original statement was not talking about the size of state (which I can see being an issue at times) but that this idea that 'the state' becomes separate entity from a societal point of view, rather than looking at it as a part of society made up by people and of people. Corporations are already a problem and can be just as coercive, and in some parts of the world more, than the state. The only difference between say the modern democratic state and any other large entity is that in the democratic state, there is at least an attempt to (how successful is up for debate) to give people a choice and a say in the running of their 'country'.

In the end everytime I see somebody talk about some idea or entity being at fault for this or other reason I can't understand the detachment that is created, it is people and their behaviour that is at fault, taking advantages of these 'entities' and 'systems' being put into place at the detriment to others; for me any entity would grow and become a problem because that is the nature of people.

The argument over what counts as voluntary actions is broad, I accept that; but this comes down to influence and coercion. But influence and coercion comes from interaction with people and society with their differing opinions, ideals, wants and needs; and I see no practical way with which society exists without some form of interaction causing some form of influence and/or coercion and thus involuntary action, even on a limited basis. Even the very act of removing yourself from a situation to avoid coercion can be seen as involuntary, because you may not have done so without that coercive potential.

Ultimately unless you decide to live by yourself in the middle of a desert, I can't see how 2 people interact without some sort of affect on each other both good and bad as no 2 people are ever the same.

Non-state entities can't tax you; the state can. Non-state entities can't prohibit you, backed with threats of theft and violence, from doing certain things on or with your own property; the state can. The problem isn't that it's the biggest, but that it has legal powers no other entities do. Non-state entities can only use persuasion, trade and voluntary association to get you to do something, but the state can use force. There's a fundamental difference here. I agree that there shouldn't be one, but there is, and it's not a matter of people tolerating other groups stealing from people, kidnapping them, locking them in cages etc and people just tolerating this. This is only tolerated when it's the state, either because people think the state is the legitimate owner of all the property inside the country, or has special rights, or that this is some sort of necessary evil to achieve goals they have or to have a functioning society at all. To me it's not a matter of the state just acting in a bad way; the state is definitionally immoral. For it to cease its immorality it'd cease to be a state at all, as I find the monopoly on violence that makes something a state in the first place to be immoral.
I certainly agree with this:

Even the very act of removing yourself from a situation to avoid coercion can be seen as involuntary

.. and it's basically the crux of my ideology as a voluntaryist: I oppose that coercion, and I think the defining features that make something a state are inherently coercive. However I strongly suspect you would define coercion much differently from me. I chose not to dig into the weeds too much as to what constituted coercion initially on purpose, as you demonstrated some type of theory of coercion in another thread I was reading a week or so ago that made me want to kill myself, and I didn't really want to go into that again. I think we may be approaching that impasse here (if we haven't hit it already), and I try to avoid getting into political debates here that aren't really advancing anything, so I think I'm out.

 

[StephenZA]

Non-state entities can't tax you; the state can. Non-state entities can't prohibit you, backed with threats of theft and violence, from doing certain things on or with your own property; the state can. The problem isn't that it's the biggest, but that it has legal powers no other entities do. Non-state entities can only use persuasion, trade and voluntary association to get you to do something, but the state can use force. There's a fundamental difference here. I agree that there shouldn't be one, but there is, and it's not a matter of people tolerating other groups stealing from people, kidnapping them, locking them in cages etc and people just tolerating this. This is only tolerated when it's the state, either because people think the state is the legitimate owner of all the property inside the country, or has special rights, or that this is some sort of necessary evil to achieve goals they have or to have a functioning society at all. To me it's not a matter of the state just acting in a bad way; the state is definitionally immoral. For it to cease its immorality it'd cease to be a state at all, as I find the monopoly on violence that makes something a state in the first place to be immoral.
I certainly agree with this:

.. and it's basically the crux of my ideology as a voluntaryist: I oppose that coercion, and I think the defining features that make something a state are inherently coercive. However I strongly suspect you would define coercion much differently from me. I chose not to dig into the weeds too much as to what constituted coercion initially on purpose, as you demonstrated some type of theory of coercion in another thread I was reading a week or so ago that made me want to kill myself, and I didn't really want to go into that again. I think we may be approaching that impasse here (if we haven't hit it already), and I try to avoid getting into political debates here that aren't really advancing anything, so I think I'm out.

I think were we differ is that the state has some sort of monopoly on violence and coercion which I disagree with fundamentally; I think that people are violent and that all organisations are coercive in one form or another in order to achieve an end, because the basic building blocks are the same, peoples wants, needs and desires. I think I probably have a much more broader definition of what constitutes coercion than you do, which is fair enough.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I was genuinely interested in the thoughts you put down to try understand where you come from, which I do struggle with.

 

[harsh.ag]

Non-state entities can't tax you; the state can. Non-state entities can't prohibit you, backed with threats of theft and violence, from doing certain things on or with your own property; the state can. The problem isn't that it's the biggest, but that it has legal powers no other entities do. Non-state entities can only use persuasion, trade and voluntary association to get you to do something, but the state can use force. There's a fundamental difference here. I agree that there shouldn't be one, but there is, and it's not a matter of people tolerating other groups stealing from people, kidnapping them, locking them in cages etc and people just tolerating this. This is only tolerated when it's the state, either because people think the state is the legitimate owner of all the property inside the country, or has special rights, or that this is some sort of necessary evil to achieve goals they have or to have a functioning society at all. To me it's not a matter of the state just acting in a bad way; the state is definitionally immoral. For it to cease its immorality it'd cease to be a state at all, as I find the monopoly on violence that makes something a state in the first place to be immoral.
I certainly agree with this:



.. and it's basically the crux of my ideology as a voluntaryist: I oppose that coercion, and I think the defining features that make something a state are inherently coercive. However I strongly suspect you would define coercion much differently from me. I chose not to dig into the weeds too much as to what constituted coercion initially on purpose, as you demonstrated some type of theory of coercion in another thread I was reading a week or so ago that made me want to kill myself, and I didn't really want to go into that again. I think we may be approaching that impasse here (if we haven't hit it already), and I try to avoid getting into political debates here that aren't really advancing anything, so I think I'm out.

This is only true in a "good" country, though.

 

[Uppercut]

I just think the existence of a democratic state is one of the least terrible solutions to the fact that Power Exists and People are Terrible. Getting rid of the state doesn't make that fact go away, it just means you need to think of a better solution to it.

 

[vcs]

I think were we differ is that the state has some sort of monopoly on violence and coercion which I disagree with fundamentally; I think that people are violent and that all organisations are coercive in one form or another in order to achieve an end, because the basic building blocks are the same, peoples wants, needs and desires. I think I probably have a much more broader definition of what constitutes coercion than you do, which is fair enough.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I was genuinely interested in the thoughts you put down to try understand where you come from, which I do struggle with.

Would the East India Company fit the bill as an example of a non-state entity that carried out violence, coercion etc.?

 

[GIMH]

I think were we differ is that the state has some sort of monopoly on violence and coercion which I disagree with fundamentally; I think that people are violent and that all organisations are coercive in one form or another in order to achieve an end, because the basic building blocks are the same, peoples wants, needs and desires. I think I probably have a much more broader definition of what constitutes coercion than you do, which is fair enough.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I was genuinely interested in the thoughts you put down to try understand where you come from, which I do struggle with.

Of course the state has a monopoly on violence. Surely the question is only whether you think that’s okay or not, not whether they do.

If I see a bloke running holding a handbag and a woman crying, so I run after the bloke, spear him, fight with him, get the bag and then it turns out it was his bag and the woman was crying about something else, what happens? When I’m sentenced I may get a reduced sentence but I’ve attacked an innocent bloke when I had no right to. I’ll be in some bother.

If a policeman does it, there may be an inquiry but let’s be realistic here. He was doing his job. He’s allowed to use force and violence when necessary because he works for the state.

Or if I found my daughter taking drugs so locked her in a cage, if the state found out I would be arrested, I’d probably have my other kids taken away from me (under the threat of force or imprisonment, some may call this coercion) because this would be cruelty and neglect. But the state routinely locks people up for taking drugs, that’s okay because they’re allowed to.

It’s not about right or wrong. You might have all sorts of justification which make you think this monopoly on force is the only way society can be civilised; I get that regardless of my own beliefs. But you can’t deny that the monopoly on force exists, not if you want to make a credible argument anyway.

 

[StephenZA]

Would the East India Company fit the bill as an example of a non-state entity that carried out violence, coercion etc.?

As an example... what about the mob? You can see it here in RSA with the private security firms, who because of the failure of police and the high crime rate get hired for protection of property and life (rightly/wrongly) but they use violence and threats to people even walking within public space, as some people become considered an undesirable. It is understandable how this came about but it is questionable from a moral/right/wrong perspective and it comes down to people, both from the criminals behaviour that cause the issue and the way people's prejudice to overcome this issue, and companies in between making a profit from it.

 

[harsh.ag]

This Tocqueville line is uncanny in the way it describes India

 

[Uppercut]

Of course the state has a monopoly on violence. Surely the question is only whether you think that’s okay or not, not whether they do.

If I see a bloke running holding a handbag and a woman crying, so I run after the bloke, spear him, fight with him, get the bag and then it turns out it was his bag and the woman was crying about something else, what happens? When I’m sentenced I may get a reduced sentence but I’ve attacked an innocent bloke when I had no right to. I’ll be in some bother.

If a policeman does it, there may be an inquiry but let’s be realistic here. He was doing his job. He’s allowed to use force and violence when necessary because he works for the state.

Or if I found my daughter taking drugs so locked her in a cage, if the state found out I would be arrested, I’d probably have my other kids taken away from me (under the threat of force or imprisonment, some may call this coercion) because this would be cruelty and neglect. But the state routinely locks people up for taking drugs, that’s okay because they’re allowed to.

It’s not about right or wrong. You might have all sorts of justification which make you think this monopoly on force is the only way society can be civilised; I get that regardless of my own beliefs. But you can’t deny that the monopoly on force exists, not if you want to make a credible argument anyway.

I have a lot of time for what you're saying but the state monopoly on violence is only theoretical. Most violent crime goes unreported, gangs exist everywhere in the world and only a minority of domestic abusers are ever prosecuted. The line between state and non-state actors is also often blurry- the East India Company is a great example, but in a country like Russia this applies very broadly.

 

[Ausage]

Would the East India Company fit the bill as an example of a non-state entity that carried out violence, coercion etc.?

Non state entities have been carrying out violence since day dot. The point isn't that the state is the only entity capable of violence, it's that states themselves are entirely predicated on carrying out violence.