Bumping Uglies: The Law Vs Circumstance

Charles Johnson’s Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It evoked some criticism from a liberal friend of mine. In particular, Johnson’s take on the prohibition of drugs and prostitution...

There are, to start out, the trades that the state has made entirely illegal: selling drugs outside of a state-authorized pharmacy, prostitution outside of the occasional state-authorized brothel “ranch,” or running small-time gambling operations outside of a state-authorized corporate casino. These trades are often practiced by women and men facing desperate poverty; the state’s efforts add the danger of fines, forfeitures, and lost years in prison.

... was not well received. In my friend's words:

More Gold From Less Antman

As was laid out in The Rationalist Position on Intellectual Property, it is possible to achieve the flourishing of creativity and the prosperity of the creative without resorting to intellectual property laws. The goal should be to create a society in which creativity is rewarded, but not unnecessarily hoarded. Less Antman states the same exceptionally well:

I am not claiming to know what principles of creative rights will be established by common law, only that some probably will, at least for the most blatant forms of reproduction without compensation, and that those opponents of IP who claim that contract won’t get us very far with copyrights are only making a guess, and I think an incorrect one. But the bigger issue is that I’m seeing many anarchists expressing utter contempt for the expectation of creative artists that they receive compensation for originating and distributing an idea and that people not be able to destroy their expected revenue stream by unauthorized and widespread reproduction.

Left Brain, Right Brain

This lecture by Matthew Taylor echoes some of the ideas I've written about here and here.

Like A "Boss"

Less Antman's insightful comments on Anna Morgenstern's Anarcho-"Capitalism" is Impossible:

Anna has now clarified that she was referring to concentration of capital, and not the mere accumulation of wealth, as being impossible under anarchy. Patri [Friedman] used a strong example, Larry Page & Sergey Brin (the Google twins), of people who have become extremely rich in the present system and who he believes (correctly, in my opinion) would still become rich under anarchy.

Types of Anarchism

A Facebook friend of mine made this and I thought it was very well done:


I'd probably place myself where or near where 'mutualism,' 'geolibertarianism' and 'individualist anarchism' overlap.

A Little Rant About Taxes

In response to A call to conservatives: What is a fair tax on the wealthy?

Why do these issues always get brought up by themselves? Taxes pay for stuff. Can that stuff be better provided by the market? Is a centralized bureaucracy capable of handling those funds efficiently? And even more importantly, are those funds going toward things that the people paying them approve of?

The government takes money from Christians and spends it on abortion. It takes money from Muslims and war protesters and spends it on a war on Muslims. It takes money from drug users and spends it on harassing and imprisoning them. It takes money from people who don't invest and spends it on regulations which are ostensibly designed to help investors. It takes money from the poor and gives it to Wall Street.

"The State"

An excellent comment was made on reddit by "Meditato" in response to Class Consciousness, Not Warfare:

[Chris George is] doing the same thing whenever he refers to "The State" as some sort of singular entity responsible for all the evil in the world. He's reducing a complex and nuanced situation into a "them" that he can then rail against.

Ever since the Agricultural Revolution around 8000 BC, humans have been consolidating. This same force of human social dynamics gives rise to both large governments and large corporations, but can be held off or slowed for long periods of time, depending on cultural and economic considerations. But the point is that it still occurs continuously, and has accelerated in the presence of technology that enables consolidating behavior. Were the anarcho-capitalists' dream state created, a dominant corporation or organization would eventually assume the role of government, except in unstable situations (Somalia comes to mind). It is naive to think that maintaining a universally anti-government position will result in any lasting good, and is the reason why I have never been able to take hardcore libertarians seriously. The fact that I've never met a libertarian with self-consistent views probably contributes to my view of them.

Don't Put A Rubber On Your Willy

I was told, last spring I think, that I was something of a modern day Robert Anton Wilson. That's definitely giving me too much credit, but I do think we take a similar approach.

I read his Natural Law - or - Don't Put A Rubber On Your Willy and really enjoyed it as he slaps natural rights absolutists across the face with reason. I would definitely recommend as it's both informed and hilarious.

Here are some choice nugs:

Class Consciousness, Not Warfare

The tagline of this website, “life is the process of resolving conflicts that have no basis in reality,” isn’t just some fluff I made up with no relevance to what this blog/journal/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is about. The world is full of ideas -- most of which are incomplete, presupposed, incoherent, flawed, or flat out wrong -- which determine our actions. When these wrong and incompatible ideas meet, humans often tend to interpret it as a threat rather than as a possibility and, thus, resort to conflict with their newfound “enemy.” Rather than actually attempt reaching an understanding, it’s far more convenient to look at and frame debates in terms of “us vs them.” Furthermore, it’s profitable. And therein lies the State.