Whilst I appreciate the sentiment at the heart of this video, and take it as fantastic arguments for privatisation and deregulation, I have some issues. First is wealth accumulation: society is naturally elitist, and thus a total free market leads to wealth accumulation, and steady increase in power for the few, a constant destructive cycle evident under Thatcher. The second is the short-minded psyche of the masses. Might a person be refused life saving surgery or protection simply because they
@Lilwidge93 were unable, or even unwilling to pay at the time? Thus those that accumulate wealth, and leave said wealth to their children gradually grow in power and status whilst those in the lowest earning positions are dwarfed by the resources the inevitable aristocrats obtain. Abolishing the state becomes pointless when the system in place gives the rich the oppressive power the government once held. A guaranteed minimum standard of living, therefore, is essential. Interesting video though
Wanna see something that will blow your mind, that will make you think deeply? Type/copy this into youtube: Androids Among Us Documentary (original Version)
Although I don't agree with all of your points some of it does have its merits. May I suggest though you cut the scene with the "voice overs" and mouth cut outs as I that almost made me want to stop watching...
One point I would make though, countries still need a military for obvious reasons. There will always be some who will use force and society needs something to defend it self with. Other than a few other services (hospitals, schools, water, etc...) government shouldn't get to large.
For those of you with an aversion to big, monopolistic businesses, most of what Rothbard said in the 60s would increase competition and destroy big, inefficient businesses, and the state, the biggest inefficient business of all.
Regrettably, the only problem with anarchy is there's no way to enforce it. Groups would coalesce together and form their own little states, and the rest is history. The state is to human as the pack is to wolf, and the school is to fish.
@JacobSpinney Congratulations on an excellent presentation from a pragmatic point of view. However, I have to disagree. History has shown that it is morality, not pragmatism, that improves society. Prejudice, women's rights, etc. are founded in morality.
At any rate, the politicians are far better at selling pragmatism.
i wish people had the ability to think long term so that we could move towards a more ideal society. all we can do is attempt to educate our the masses.
@janc71 What do you mean proving my statist position. My position has a proven record of success, any succesful country you care to name is a 'statist' country. Thats enough proof.
love this video. I am currently studying development at Bradford Universities peace studies department. we cover this type of outlook. Could I possibly reference you over the coming months in my essays on sustainable development, understanding violence and development in practice please?
@coynedogg those larger organized entities you mention have no power on their own. they require the government.
just who would you be 'buying' those things from? no one would have the exclusive right of force. no one would have a protected monopoly, and no one would be protected from liability (which is what a corporation or LLC is - protection from criminal liability)... think about it.
'those larger organized entities you mention have no power on their own. they require the government.'
I disagree with this. The wealth they possess, the ability to manufacture goods, and supply jobs, gives them power. Then there is what the government will give them, like the right ot arm themselves. (Blackwater)
If we had complete Anarchy large businesses would become the new warlords.
We need to overhaul, or recreate, the system. (hopefully without blood)
Your thinking is biased by the paradigm you inhabit and support. And you're also grossly underestimating how much those 'big businesses' rely on government for their existence. The state-dependent monopolies of energy, medicine, money, academia and the initiation of force - have your mind in a habitrail.
'Your thinking is biased by the paradigm you inhabit and support. And you're also grossly underestimating how much those 'big businesses' rely on government for their existence. The state-dependent monopolies of energy, medicine, money, academia and the initiation of force - have your mind in a habitrail.'
You are incorrect, big business would still exist in Laissez-faire capitalism.
If you do not suggest capitalism, what do you suggest?
'The state-dependent monopolies of energy, medicine, money, academia and the initiation of force'
My power and water bills were not going to a government entity.
It is a proven fact, as it has been attempted, big business would wants to own water rights, including rain water, and ground water. They would ration air to us, for a fee, if it were allowed.
There is an effort, across the globe, to privatize government controlled public utilities.
Global banking, against the will of citizens, use loans as a weapon to force countries into capitulation.
Global banking is big business. If we are to effect meaningful change in this country we need to get out of the central bank, UN, and other organizations which do not share our interests.
Politicians who insist on supporting globalism, who insist on participating in global organizations, should be tried for treason.
@coynedogg So let me understand your position. You're afraid of an entity who is not allowed to use violence in any way gaining too much power, so you wish to give supreme power to an entity who IS allowed to used violence in any way it wishes? Is that right?
'So let me understand your position. You're afraid of an entity who is not allowed to use violence in any way gaining too much power, so you wish to give supreme power to an entity who IS allowed to used violence in any way it wishes? Is that right?'
You conveniently ignore history. Big business, big money, has a history of violence. A history of abusing laws and citizens.
Please save the petty judgmental statements and answer the question.
@JacobSpinney further, what does "not allowed to use violence" mean jacob? the only governing body prohibiting the use of violence is the state itself
@JacobSpinney No, I think his point is that when you use the term 'allowed', it begs the question "allowed by whom?" The common defense,common law,and a protection of individual rights of dignity,property,and self are necessary for this society of yours,and not everyone is convinced that a 100%freemarket will negotiate its way to this through the negative feedback that manages the other parts so well.And not by a supreme power,but rather one limited by the same negative rights it protects.
@coynedogg HaHa!! In a hypothetical society, predicated by nothing more than freedom of action and mutually beneficial voluntarism, you think some company like WalMart or whatever is somehow going to force you to buy your right to have children?
I would like you to google the word "melodramatic".
'HaHa!! In a hypothetical society, predicated by nothing more than freedom of action and mutually beneficial voluntarism, you think some company like WalMart or whatever is somehow going to force you to buy your right to have children?'
Haha! in your hillarious pie in the sky view of 'reality' a for profit company can be trusted, without any controls, to assume every duty of government. So, YES.
They would be regulated by other companies in your model.
'I would like you to google the word "melodramatic". '
HAHAHA! In a real situation we've all seen multiple companies quickly, and easily, merged into a monopoly. When that happened with our regulatory agencies we'd have no protection, no rights.
I would like you to google the words, "Naive Idealist".
@coynedogg OK. Silly name-calling aside, can you explain how a company can somehow gain the right to force you to buy the right to have children? Remember. . . the hypothetical society in question is one where the initiation of force is not tolerated. So any answer you give has to fit within that framework. Using the "the real world" is invalid, since it is inherently riddled with market distortions and favoritism, created by the govt.
@coynedogg I never said initiation of force would not exist, just that it wouldn't be tolerated. Again, you are creating strawmen to try and knock down, rather than addressing the point. Maybe instead of calling you "melodramatic", I should have called you "cowardly".
Either way, your dim view of humanity means you will never consider an ethical world, so this conversation has met an end. Have the last point, if it makes you feel victorious. It will still be meaningless.
@coynedogg WRONG. Human aggression has to do with how we raise our children (trauma, suppression and the violence of the institution creates aggression). Hobbs Malthus and Spencer were wrong. Our closest primate ancestors are bonobos. Highly cooperative, non-violent, non-territorial. Aggression is not our nature.
@coynedogg I am not a "Naive Idealist". Nowhere in my comment did I suggest that problems would not exist. Your strawman argument fails. However, I think that if you had followed my google advice, you would indeed find that suggesting companies would tyrannically control the right to procreate to be "melodramatic". You may not like the term, but it does apply to your assertion, whether you like it or not.
Sorry if you don't see the lack of competition when you go to Walmart. I don't know what area you live in, but wired phone is still probably controlled either directly (or through subcontracting) by ATT. When they had the big fight over telephone monopoplies some years back all that did was create subcontractors and create additional costs to those like MCI and SPRINT who were providing cheaper long distance.
Then there is Monsanto, Soy beans /Corn and other (EVIL MOFOS)
"Competitors include Viagogo, New Era Tickets, Wantickets, Tickets.com, ShowClix, StubHub, Classictic, TicketBiscuit, Ticketbooth Enta USA and others. "
Source: wikipedia. org/wiki/Ticketmaster
ConAgra competitors:
Excel, Iowa Beef Packers, and National Beef
Source: YOU
Competitors to mass media:
youTube, google
And this is in a world with GOVERNMENTS THAT SUPPORT corporations.
@jeffiek How about the "News". (I know this is multi-media but its a specific part) AP provides a near total monopoly on the stories, and the angles those stories will take, that are provided to you. News? TALKING HEADS: watch?v=Pl7sWtUu1Fc Monsanto's BGH vs. News watch?v=b38lZa3GIHs Good Documentary on PSYOPS in our MEDIA watch?v=NXg70qJQ6O0 FOX Exposed watch?v=SLownOY-UIc
@AustralianNeoCon Abolishing all powerful bullies with badges charged with enforcing hundreds of thousands of ridiculous laws and abusing and stealing form peaceful people would eliminate a huge portion of the violent crime in society today. Search YT, Google & FB for "Abolish The Cops". What we do about real criminals (violent people who use coercion on peaceful people) will directly address the problem without assaulting and caging up millions of people who have hurt no one.
@AndyWright68 No offense, but this sounds like fantasy land. Police and laws have been crafted and honed for thousand of years to meet the needs of complex human societies. Tossing this out, and just 'winging it', is beyond foolish. With out some proof that this new law and order system will work, we have no reason to throw out a system that has been proven to work, JacobSpinney's 'theories' are not enough.
@AustralianNeoCon None taken. It doesn't sound like you have heard and understand all the arguments. Crafted and honed? Really? All that time? It should be well perfected by now then, don't you think? Winging it? No. Anarchy is a form of social order. We are not talking about every man for themselves but a voluntary based set of rules that allow free trade and competition among all services. This is going to be a multi-generational transition to a truly free society.
@AustralianNeoCon Switching over night would be disastrous. You have good reason to fear chaos. But imaging the next generation or so being raised without violence and educated on how a free society could work and taught how to think critically instead of what to be(lie)ve and who they should bow down to. This will inevitably lead to an organized society based on the nonaggression principal. Statism will fall alongside chained slaver as being immoral and repugnant.
@AndyWright68 America is not the country to test hypothetical ideas. You should set up your own communities and see what happens. You cant expect people to go along with an idea that has hundreds of unanswered questions, and has never been historically shown to work. Idealists like yourself use to think Communism was the solution and look what happened to that. Just because ideas sound good in theory or on paper doesn't mean it will work in real life, you have to prove it works.
@JacobSpinney I watched your video, all I can recall is your mentioning some scottish society or something, which got conquered from some other state. Perhaps there is no modern day non-state societies, exactly because they cant defend themselves and have all be conquered?
@AustralianNeoCon so what you are saying is, since states can ue violence to coerse a whole region they are needed. So that they can protect their region?
But since they are the cause of the problem to begin with that just means we add another problem to the list.
The commonwealth of iceland protected itself against Norway for several decades.
Not being a state dosent prevent you from protecting yourself but gives less incentive to invade others on behalf of your region.
@SakakiDash A non-state is never going to be as powerful as a state, because states force all their citizens to pay towards a military. Non-states would have a military that is only funded by voluntary payment. And given all the peaceniks out there, I doubt they would get much funding.
Norway is like the most non-aggressive country in the world, I'd like to see a voluntary paid army go against an army like China's or Russia's which is funded by all their citizens.
@AustralianNeoCon The mistake you make is that the burden of proof is not on people like Jaboc who advocate non-violence. You believe society can only work if there's a coercive monopoly of force, so the burden of proof is on you.
@janc71 I'm afraid it is on Jacob. Hes the one arguging for a revolution. And given the bloody record of poltical ideologes that 'look' great in theory but fail in reality, I think we would need a large amount of evidence before we switch over. And there is plenty of soceities where the state does not have the monopoly on vilolence, its called the third world.
@AustralianNeoCon I listed historical examples of the kinds of societal systems I advocate; historical examples of societies that did not fall apart at all, but flourished. Please . . . watch the video before leaving yet another comment demonstrating that you didn't.
A Brilliant exposition and synthesis of Mises-Rothbard-Hoppe anarcho-capitalism and libertarian thought. Wow--a tour de force. Keep up the great work!
Government is a function of civilization. If this guy hates the state so much and doesn't want to live under a governments authority, whats stoping him from moving to Montana and living off the grid up in the mountains? If you want to live in a society, live by the rules of the majority or else leave the society, nobody forces you to stay.
@dan24b Civilization does not exist BECAUSE OF government, but in SPITE OF government. You attribute all progress that is passed barren wilderness to the good hand of the government? Quite the contrary, I attribute it to practices that are the antithesis of government's nature. The state prevents the civilized world from realizing their full potential.
@nodeal22 Firstly, I NEVER said that civilization exists because of government, YOU claimed that i said that when I did not. I merely suggested that most societies since the rise of civilization have had governments. Secondly, I never attributed anything, either positive or negative to government but simply suggested that if you don't want to live under the authority of a government, you don't have to be a part of the society that has the said government. Go live off the grid in Montana!
The state is not great unless you live in Sweden that is. There's no recession there, but they have lots of tax and big government .Well, I'm up for it, and so are they, iIf you are onto something good you keep it.
@nodeal22 it was on Radio 4 two days ago two days ago about how Sweden does not have a recession, and how they love their high taxes because it makes their country such a good place to live. This stuff is right up to date. We have had 30 years of neo liberalism freeing up markets and deregulating and all we have to show for it is the rich getting extremely rich and everyone else getting poorer, plus a crash in the World economy where the bankers still keep looting because of the lack of regs.
There is only one value in libertarism - what your economic worth is. People are reduced to nothing more than consumers in this so called libertarian utopia..
@nivekvb we are all consumers and producers, and what we produce is exchanged for what we consume -- a system much better than a government that is turned to for the means of production, robs those who actually do produce, and gives to those who do not.
@nivekvb Not just legalized drugs, but the freedom to make personal choices. You own your body don't you? Why is a central force telling you what you are and are not allowed to put into it?
No cops? The fact that you think a police force would be absent in a stateless society shows your lack of understanding for the topic you criticize. Read up junior.
Sure, the gov may do some bad things, as there are always imperfect humans running it. But government is a prerequisite for a civilized society. Without this collective pool of money we would have no police, fire dept., public education, welfare, disability ben., vetrans ben., military, health care for the poor, libraries, road construction, etc. And if you left it up to people to choose whether they wanted to pitch in, nobody would, so we must enforce taxes, or our civilization will collapse.
@shadowmalik009 I'm thinking this philosopher was suggesting that gov should not meddle with personal freedoms. I doubt he was talking about cutting taxes so low that we can't pay our bills and the income of the rich snowball upward until the rest of us starve on the streets. Tax cuts in the US help the rich far more than the poor.
I thought I would put this out again. Libertarians only see people as having economic value, they don't see people as having true worth because are special to someone or are loveable.
@nivekvb ohhh, i would've thought the only belief system which protects and promotes individual liberty and self-reliance across the board would see people as having self-worth. my bad.
More free? The idiocy of the argument lies right there. What is more free? Allowing the derivatives market to be deregulated is more free or allowing oil companies to police their oil rigs? The fact is support for impractical systems leads us to ignore basic realities of life - that markets need to be regulated because people's lives depend on it. FM concept believes markets will weed out inefficiencies but at what cost to society? The state protects our freedoms from ruthless oligarchs
You know, ever since I was a child, everyone has always told me the same thing; "The State is a necessary evil. It is corrupt, but without it, civilized society couldn't exist."
This video has done an amazing job of asking the question: why not?
Now, I've put years of propaganda disseminated through generations aside, and for the very first time, I've come to question how necessary that evil really is.
if you truly believe in a better world then don't waste a chance to tell important messages to all the people you think will listen to you. promote love and peace and education and intelligence, teach people how to think for themselves and give them a tour thru reality and be optimistic that by doing small work all together, teaching each other, improving ourselves, and learning from others, and each one of us doing it, we will make this planet our home paradise.
@xbuster17 So true. Libertarians only see people as having economic value, they don't see people as having true worth because are special to someone or are loveable..
here's more. force your state to legalize cannabis and forbid deforestation and tree paper. force them to pay ridiculous mounts say 100$ per gram of chemical industry waste unless harmless or properly disposed. and most important (specially for usaians ) try with all your spirit to convince everyone you know not to waste, to recycle, and that love is way more valuable than products or money.
not in a bad way but in the way that most of us aren't sharing a profound link with nature and the universe to "just know" we're to many people on this planet and it's resources. more of if the mind connection thing is not possible and we need the textual data then someone should collect that data , perform a census, and notice the people the stats...cause we might accidentally screw things up building of growing to much...and that would kill us
for this to be legal and well made not ending on a civil war then a direct democracy should be applied for instant representation or every individual allowing a state to take the communist and horrible decision (this is what a millionaire might say) to claim and redistribute wealth. and still for the transition stage it's necessary to be a state to make a fluid transition (and not thru nuclear warfare) into a sustainable alternative. control population and resources.
then freedom from state should be accomplished by some silly task like signing a paper, if you go alone, fine, here's some land, be happy. want more land? gather signatures of people who wants to live there, choose a name and randomly some inspector will go and see if they do live there. land size proportional to the people asking for it...but all lands has been sold already, even the moon. so the state should claim for real all lands except the one for personal survival
while states operate illegally with markets and shit people will always be in power. we should force them to declare global peace and respect for our planet. make them realize that we share the same home and if someone makes a mess then our home is messy. everyone should be able to be properly represented by ideologies or leave the state and form their own community. tho that independent community can't be non linked to the rest of the world in some way like un or intl court...
if people wouldn't die from starvation if they quit their jobs then lot's of mothers (and fathers) would quit or take an year "vacation" to raise their kids, be sure to educate them properly so they know what's worthy in life and what worth'd dyeing for in the past...state should also offer free vasectomies to the pop that way we wont have a million zillion kids with grey housing and food... cause that would make the problem worse... demand your state this things
think about it... if you have guaranteed free food and shelter you would quit your job and try to live for your artistic career. you'll be fine living in a gray state house eating gray state rice, if you're allowed to put posters and spice your food before becoming gray. ofc you'd be able to grow your own cannabis right?... there's lot's of countries lacking good public education and most countries education system sucks like they don't teach what they should instead they create employees..
i feel that now we have internet a whole lots of new ideas came in. i really liked the ranking system, that's awesome. i see that small populations are way easier to "control" and that we would work much better that way. most nations fought a long way to have free education, free health insurance. we should get to free food and shelter too. we also need to lower the population. that alone i think will fix the world almost completely...
i believe we should plan more how to deal with the now that to plan in the future cause no one knows the future... for now i think occupy should force usa into some new ways. they must modify the totalitarian position that some elite countries have in the UN. you must force them to recognize palestine as a state, perhaps then, groups of people would be able to form their own state thus owning their own land and applying their own law following some global hint of how we should coexist in peace
my point ( i guess) is that people should be good and loving and respectful in any system. even this one could work wonders if people did that. even if you had the perfect city plains and social organization book, you might fail terribly just because people don't wont to work or pay for it and the people and money you get to building that comes with corp or gob interests...
it's hard to think new ways of living with so many humans being so not supportive. i do agree most of the people will be happy within a small community with their own laws. if every state gave a free zone to whoever come and establish a place in the current day a lot of mafia would take over that to have even more secrets to destroy even more of the rest of the society...
no i'm not completely sure i agree now i think you're being a bit naive. we might change the view, it's not the state or the monetary system, or the corporations... it's us... we educating children generation after generation or more like degeneration caused by us. kids know murder cause we show them on the tv murder. we can teach them different but for that we must learn different, so keep thinking, keep teaching, never get of the internet since i think this will show the path to the future
@mecher3k The ARPANET, the first router and packet switching were all pioneered by Bolt, Beranak and Newman Inc. They were merely given a contract to develop a computer network by ARPA, which, by the way, was at the time headed by J. C. R. Licklider, who had originally had the vision of a global computer network, and who had also, by the way, previously worked at BBN. To say that the Government built the backbone of the internet is simply incorrect.
The very fact that you can't have an electoral system that always pleases literally everyone demonstrates to my mind why your utopian, anarcho-capitalist vision won't work. People's individual self-interest cannot always be prioritised above a collective greater good. That's why states came about in the first place; as a functional organ expressing a common will and providing certain things as public goods, not as some sort of artificial tyranny dreamed up by a few men's vanity.
@TheAlfonz69 Are you really so brainwashed as to think the state exists because people wanted rulers? No, the state exists because the rulers want it to exist. I don't blame you for thinking this way...you've had state education since you were 4 years old.
Gallup has the current US government at a 46% approval rating. I don't know where you got 5%, but it looks like you made it up.
Point is that if you had elections so frequently that the government of the day always enjoyed unanimous support, a country would crumble. A 4 year cycle is about right for stability and Obama had a massive majority at the start. If people dislike his policies now they can vote him out. He won't 'coerce' people into leaving him as predisent if he loses.
I did watch the video. You referenced a mercantilist monoploy in thoroughly stateist medieval Europe that enforced a guild like system that conferred corporate priviledge. Celtic Ireland functioned on a communistic (primitive anarcho-syndicalist) level locally, but also had myriad petty kings COERCING their subjects into pointless wars that critically weakened the country and exposed it to foreign attackers (Vikings, Saxons, Normans). Neither is a good example of 'voluntaryism' at work.
Finally, you claikm stateless societies have never been tried, but this is in a sense untrue. Modern Somalia, Renaissance Italy, Celtic Europe, none had proper, centrifeugal governments, all failed, degenerating into violence, feuds and petty private interests. Would you want to live in Somalia, with no legitimate state, no criminal justice service, no law enforcement and no societal cohesion whatsoever? They can't even feed their citizens (and while I'm at it, neither can charity)
@TheAlfonz69 I'm now convinced you never actually watched the video you're commenting under, or at least all the way through, as I did indeed bring up historical examines of stateless societies in the video.
@TheAlfonz69 Just look at Afghanistan, I don't think the government gets much of a look in there. The place is just run by yobs, bandits, and warlords. These are the sort of people that seize control if they can.
Details aside, I think you give government too much of a bad rap. Many states have degenrated into failure and violence, but in the western world, where legal and democratic consents are the order of the day, states are not the demons you portray; as sovereign entities they LEGALLY can use force and coercion, but POLITICALLY tend not to, for fear of losing the popular consent they require to exist. There is abuse of power even in democracies, but that is preferable to total chaos.
However, if the security firms possess the ability to enforce such things they also have they ability to hold clients to ransom, and without a third party (i.e. the state) to mediate, victim's only recourse is to hire other contractors. Without that legitimate, moderating party, there's little in the way of private wars and feuds. Government may not be composed of infallible beings, but neither are corporations.
@TheAlfonz69 And what's to stop a state from holding clients to ransom? Oh wait, THEY ALREADY DO! This is not rocket science. If you have a monopoly, you are more likely to abuse your power. If you do not have a monopoly, you are more likely to stay in line, as everyone else will have the ability to gang up on you if you do abuse your power. The monopoly of a state has no such check and balance.
The problem is that we have a weak domocracy where governments are run by the rich, or rather the bankers. The libertarians want no regulations and so the banks can continue to freely speculate forcing prices up well beyond their true market value. This is a like a super tax system where money is collected for the wealthy but they do nothing to contribute to wealth creation. This sucks and it has to stop. Why should the powerful be allowed the freedom to run these scams stealing folks money?
@nivekvb The powerful always control government. They always have. The core tenet of the progressive movement are based on the premise of a benevolent elite of economic and social planners controlling the nation through government. "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. " Edward Bernays "Propaganda" (1928). This is a elitist ideology.
@nivekvb You should oppose the government deficit spending then. Wall Street controls the sale of bonds used to deficit spend, so they make money on every bond sold through commissions. Government does not contribute to wealth creation. It is a drag on wealth creation. Keynesian economists believe that wealth creation is a side issue: Employment and consumption are claimed driving forces in an economy. Encouragement of consumption concentrates wealth with the economic elites
@nivekvb Supply and demand are not repealed by decree. The ratio of money to goods causes price increases prices. The Fed increases money supply (out of thin air} fuels the speculative and inflation forces that drive increases in prices on goods. Inflation guarantees successful leverage. Leverage accelerates wealth concentration with the elites. Therefore, deficit spending and Federal Reserve money creation, which you support, results in what you claim to oppose.
You say that but without law, what's to stop free competition between securiuty contractors degenerating into violence? What's to stop people pursuing personal feuds through hiring them? What's to stop mass vigilanteism? And what is the difference between a landlord forcing people out of a property, and the state doing similar things? My point is that though states use force, they also prevent its abuse by non state actors, and are in most countries, restrained by law up to a point
@TheAlfonz69 What's to stop states from degenerating into violence? What's to stop people from pursuing personal feuds and hiring a hitman under a state? What's to stop mass vigilanteism under a state?
The difference is the landlord has a legitimate claim over the property, since he either built the house himself or bought it from the person who did. The state does not have a legitimate claim over the property, because merely pointing and calling dibs is not a legitimate way to claim property.
@TheAlfonz69 My point is that these problems you fear happening without a state can and do also happen with states. The only difference is that without the state the private providers of what used to be state functions will provide higher quality at a lower price, because you now have the option to decide not to pay them if you aren't satisfied. There will still be laws. The enforcers of those laws will just no longer have the right to steal from us and illegalize competing enforcers.
@cornas47 Our goverment has been taken over by big business and democracy has fiinished. Texans murder their children at 11 times the rate of Italians. Don't try to tell me that people living in the ultra conservative states of America are better off than those living in France, or many other European countries. You are in self denial, sadly!. Why do you want to live in such a miserable libetarian dog eat dog world? Humans are very social creatures and united we stand, but divided we fall
@Tethloach1 well, it might surprise you that you are completely wrong.. we have a right-wing government and our taxes never go past 30% and no swedes are not all about physical labor.. very little actually
If the state has a monopoly on coercion and force, how is removing the state from the picture also removing coercion and force? Won't these things simply end up in the hands of people unconstrained by law, constitution, democratic scrutiny etc.?
@TheAlfonz69 The state has a monopoly on *legitimized* coercion. Sure there will still be violence without a state. But at least the enforcers of laws who will help to minimize this violence will not have the right to use monopolistic coercion to sustain themselves, they will instead have to sustain themselves by providing a better quality good or service at a lower price.
@JacobSpinney I am astonished that people don't get this simple fact. Government uses it's "legitimized" coercion to to produce and create monopolistic situations in the economy. Congress passes regulation laws, which are then given to regulatory agencies. Those agencies are run by the same powerful special interests that are supposed to be regulated. So, they write the actual regulations which repress competition. It isn't the free market.
@JacobSpinney Real life doesn't work like this. The anarchist world, complete with its 'private defense' and 'private policing' companies exists. It is called 'gang land'. It is called Sicily. The maphia are the real world 'private security companies'. This is what a society degenerates to without a central monopoly on organized force - brutal, bloody and sustained competition for power, silenced only when a single victor emerges.
Texas willingness to tax itself is near the bottom, but Vermont, in contrast, is at the other extreme. It is a high-tax, high-service state. In looking at key indicators of well-being, children from Texas are twice as likely to drop out of high school as children from Vermont. They are four times more likely to be uninsured, four times more likely to be incarcerated, and nearly twice as likely to die from abuse and neglect. So much for the benefits of the weak state and low tax.
Without the state the level (as a percentage of total population) of violence would be far greater. Look at any country where the state has collapsed (eg Somalia). Any large-scale anarchist experiment would quickly deteriorate into tribalism, with inter-tribal warfare.
"Gaelic Ireland was a land of continuous warfare, as túatha fought for supremacy against each other". Source "Irish frontier warfare: a fifteenth-century case study". Cormac Ó Cléirigh (1997)
@CPS3344 Using your logic we should have a world government, more police more restrictions more security, more regulations on everything who you have sex with alright then one curency the illusion of free will so two sides of the same coin. If that's what you want you just might get it. illusion is all you need, i for one would have freedom rather than the illusion of it.
@GreenGuyofSweden Don't you guys pay 75% taxs hmmm.... and 0 debt interesting. You seem morally corrupt, "tax's are necessary" If you don't believe things can get better than they will only get worst. In Sweden everyone must love psychical labour right? Sweden people love thier jobs so much they rush to get to work so they can contribute more money to the state.
Oops! I forgot to mention, France has some of the highest taxes in the world too, yet it still outperformed the American economy. It looks like the state is quite good at getting business to work at their best.
Socialised France, with its 35 hr week, its expensive state medical system, it's huge bureaucracy, and its enormous amount of regulations, has consistently outperformed the USA economically since the 1970’s. And so have many other European countries it say's in the article: Stocks of Socialised Countries Have Outperformed US since the Reagan Era. And guess what, in France the state even supplies a nanny for 4 hrs twice a week to help out when you have a new baby. Now that is a nice country.
@DeeWox But do they outcompete Germany, where wages are 25% higher than Americans. The closer you get to a libertaran state, the poorer it is. Texas, where loads of ultraconservatives live and taxes are low, have some of the poorest people in the US. But northen social democratic Europe has produced great wealth for its people. If you compare high tax Vermont to low tax Texas, you get the picture, But it gets wost, Texas has the highrest child murder rate too. So much for family values
@nivekvb It's irrelevant how high the wages are. You have to look at the cost of living. And "poor" is a relative term. A poor man/woman in the US is WELL OFF. If you are in the US middle class you are better off than a European man/woman in the middle class. The same goes for the "poor".
@nivekvb Cop out? Where are your sources? I live in one of the most socialistic countries in the world. Norway. We have on of the highest salaries in the world, yet (most of us) we are not as rich as the middle-class in America.
16:30 Hey! Hey apple! Hey apple! Apple! Apple! Hey! Hey apple! Knife!
EGKangaroo 1 day ago
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Lilwidge93 4 days ago in playlist My Top Videos
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment at the heart of this video, and take it as fantastic arguments for privatisation and deregulation, I have some issues. First is wealth accumulation: society is naturally elitist, and thus a total free market leads to wealth accumulation, and steady increase in power for the few, a constant destructive cycle evident under Thatcher. The second is the short-minded psyche of the masses. Might a person be refused life saving surgery or protection simply because they
Lilwidge93 4 days ago in playlist My Top Videos
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@Lilwidge93 were unable, or even unwilling to pay at the time? Thus those that accumulate wealth, and leave said wealth to their children gradually grow in power and status whilst those in the lowest earning positions are dwarfed by the resources the inevitable aristocrats obtain. Abolishing the state becomes pointless when the system in place gives the rich the oppressive power the government once held. A guaranteed minimum standard of living, therefore, is essential. Interesting video though
Lilwidge93 4 days ago in playlist My Top Videos
I think most statists don't have the patience to watch this entire video
pureaggression 4 days ago 2
Wanna see something that will blow your mind, that will make you think deeply? Type/copy this into youtube: Androids Among Us Documentary (original Version)
DjHyphie 4 days ago
Magic Robot for President!
voltagecontrolmusic 4 days ago
Although I don't agree with all of your points some of it does have its merits. May I suggest though you cut the scene with the "voice overs" and mouth cut outs as I that almost made me want to stop watching...
One point I would make though, countries still need a military for obvious reasons. There will always be some who will use force and society needs something to defend it self with. Other than a few other services (hospitals, schools, water, etc...) government shouldn't get to large.
TheDinochimp 6 days ago
Who likes the idea of Eco-Agorism?
DesecrateConformity 1 week ago
For those of you with an aversion to big, monopolistic businesses, most of what Rothbard said in the 60s would increase competition and destroy big, inefficient businesses, and the state, the biggest inefficient business of all.
DesecrateConformity 2 weeks ago
I still think government should exist in some form, for the purpose of a legal system, emergency services, and a basic social safety net.
If the government didn't exist, whoever had the most weapons would take control, basically forming a new one except far far worse.
Megatrousers 2 weeks ago
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Nice pronunciation :P
Regrettably, the only problem with anarchy is there's no way to enforce it. Groups would coalesce together and form their own little states, and the rest is history. The state is to human as the pack is to wolf, and the school is to fish.
vitaminsandstds 2 weeks ago
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vitaminsandstds 2 weeks ago
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mikedans55 2 weeks ago
Mises DOT org for an education. Great video man. Peace!
mikedans55 2 weeks ago
@JacobSpinney Congratulations on an excellent presentation from a pragmatic point of view. However, I have to disagree. History has shown that it is morality, not pragmatism, that improves society. Prejudice, women's rights, etc. are founded in morality.
At any rate, the politicians are far better at selling pragmatism.
jeffiek 3 weeks ago
@jeffiek
Who in the US media covered these stories. Not Newsworthy? Not something that would have got good ratings?
Russian Federation President threatens to attack United States (DEC2011)
watch?v=C9Y2iQdN9NQ
China Threatens World War III (DEC 2011)
Nope, no monopolies on anything in this country. *puts head back into sand*
coynedogg 2 weeks ago
i wish people had the ability to think long term so that we could move towards a more ideal society. all we can do is attempt to educate our the masses.
scootsmonkey 3 weeks ago
@scootsmonkey dammit, i meant " to educate the masses". i do not know why i put an "our".
scootsmonkey 3 weeks ago
Bravo Jacob, bravo. Superb video.
jabmeister 3 weeks ago in playlist My Top Videos
Amazing!!!
Thanks so much, now if only my friends would watch the whole thing.
BellTollsForThee 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon Without proving your statist position, you're advocating violence based on a hunch. Sorry, but the burden of proof is on you.
janc71 3 weeks ago
@janc71 What do you mean proving my statist position. My position has a proven record of success, any succesful country you care to name is a 'statist' country. Thats enough proof.
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago
love this video. I am currently studying development at Bradford Universities peace studies department. we cover this type of outlook. Could I possibly reference you over the coming months in my essays on sustainable development, understanding violence and development in practice please?
binkiie4dictator 3 weeks ago
@binkiie4dictator Absolutely!
JacobSpinney 3 weeks ago 2
So Jacob,
What is your solution? What do you think big business would do to the populace with no government control?
We'll be buying our water, air, and right to have children.
I am for decentralized government, but we still need government to protect us against larger organized entities.
coynedogg 3 weeks ago in playlist My Top Videos
@coynedogg those larger organized entities you mention have no power on their own. they require the government.
just who would you be 'buying' those things from? no one would have the exclusive right of force. no one would have a protected monopoly, and no one would be protected from liability (which is what a corporation or LLC is - protection from criminal liability)... think about it.
immayhem 3 weeks ago
@immayhem
'those larger organized entities you mention have no power on their own. they require the government.'
I disagree with this. The wealth they possess, the ability to manufacture goods, and supply jobs, gives them power. Then there is what the government will give them, like the right ot arm themselves. (Blackwater)
If we had complete Anarchy large businesses would become the new warlords.
We need to overhaul, or recreate, the system. (hopefully without blood)
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg
Your thinking is biased by the paradigm you inhabit and support. And you're also grossly underestimating how much those 'big businesses' rely on government for their existence. The state-dependent monopolies of energy, medicine, money, academia and the initiation of force - have your mind in a habitrail.
immayhem 3 weeks ago
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@immayhem
'Your thinking is biased by the paradigm you inhabit and support. And you're also grossly underestimating how much those 'big businesses' rely on government for their existence. The state-dependent monopolies of energy, medicine, money, academia and the initiation of force - have your mind in a habitrail.'
You are incorrect, big business would still exist in Laissez-faire capitalism.
If you do not suggest capitalism, what do you suggest?
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@immayhem
'The state-dependent monopolies of energy, medicine, money, academia and the initiation of force'
My power and water bills were not going to a government entity.
It is a proven fact, as it has been attempted, big business would wants to own water rights, including rain water, and ground water. They would ration air to us, for a fee, if it were allowed.
There is an effort, across the globe, to privatize government controlled public utilities.
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@immayhem
Global banking, against the will of citizens, use loans as a weapon to force countries into capitulation.
Global banking is big business. If we are to effect meaningful change in this country we need to get out of the central bank, UN, and other organizations which do not share our interests.
Politicians who insist on supporting globalism, who insist on participating in global organizations, should be tried for treason.
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg So let me understand your position. You're afraid of an entity who is not allowed to use violence in any way gaining too much power, so you wish to give supreme power to an entity who IS allowed to used violence in any way it wishes? Is that right?
JacobSpinney 3 weeks ago 19
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@JacobSpinney
'So let me understand your position. You're afraid of an entity who is not allowed to use violence in any way gaining too much power, so you wish to give supreme power to an entity who IS allowed to used violence in any way it wishes? Is that right?'
You conveniently ignore history. Big business, big money, has a history of violence. A history of abusing laws and citizens.
Please save the petty judgmental statements and answer the question.
What do you propose?
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg My entire video is my proposition. Perhaps you could explain exactly what parts you don't think will work.
JacobSpinney 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg You conveniently ignore history. In almost all cases where business was violent, it was backed by government.
Even so, government by itself has a much longer a larger history of violence than any corporation.
itachi705 3 weeks ago 10
@JacobSpinney the gov says they can't use violence
Mr1700 3 weeks ago
@JacobSpinney jacob, corporations use violence as a matter of policy
try robbing any major business and tell me who gets there first, the cops or the on site security
RadicalSyndicate 3 weeks ago
@RadicalSyndicate you can choose/change who you can do business with. As for your government, good luck with that!
kmelfina 3 weeks ago
@JacobSpinney and really jacob, every type of private security including hit men are businesses in the free market
RadicalSyndicate 3 weeks ago
@JacobSpinney further, what does "not allowed to use violence" mean jacob? the only governing body prohibiting the use of violence is the state itself
RadicalSyndicate 3 weeks ago
@JacobSpinney No, I think his point is that when you use the term 'allowed', it begs the question "allowed by whom?" The common defense,common law,and a protection of individual rights of dignity,property,and self are necessary for this society of yours,and not everyone is convinced that a 100%freemarket will negotiate its way to this through the negative feedback that manages the other parts so well.And not by a supreme power,but rather one limited by the same negative rights it protects.
Xylos144 5 days ago
@coynedogg HaHa!! In a hypothetical society, predicated by nothing more than freedom of action and mutually beneficial voluntarism, you think some company like WalMart or whatever is somehow going to force you to buy your right to have children?
I would like you to google the word "melodramatic".
rmcdaniel423 3 weeks ago
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@rmcdaniel423
'HaHa!! In a hypothetical society, predicated by nothing more than freedom of action and mutually beneficial voluntarism, you think some company like WalMart or whatever is somehow going to force you to buy your right to have children?'
Haha! in your hillarious pie in the sky view of 'reality' a for profit company can be trusted, without any controls, to assume every duty of government. So, YES.
They would be regulated by other companies in your model.
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@rmcdaniel423
'I would like you to google the word "melodramatic". '
HAHAHA! In a real situation we've all seen multiple companies quickly, and easily, merged into a monopoly. When that happened with our regulatory agencies we'd have no protection, no rights.
I would like you to google the words, "Naive Idealist".
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg OK. Silly name-calling aside, can you explain how a company can somehow gain the right to force you to buy the right to have children? Remember. . . the hypothetical society in question is one where the initiation of force is not tolerated. So any answer you give has to fit within that framework. Using the "the real world" is invalid, since it is inherently riddled with market distortions and favoritism, created by the govt.
rmcdaniel423 3 weeks ago
@rmcdaniel423
'Remember. . . the hypothetical society in question is one where the initiation of force is not tolerated.'
ah yes... Naive Idealism.
Humans are animals, aggression is in our nature.
I suggest formulating your ideal society around that fact.
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg I never said initiation of force would not exist, just that it wouldn't be tolerated. Again, you are creating strawmen to try and knock down, rather than addressing the point. Maybe instead of calling you "melodramatic", I should have called you "cowardly".
Either way, your dim view of humanity means you will never consider an ethical world, so this conversation has met an end. Have the last point, if it makes you feel victorious. It will still be meaningless.
rmcdaniel423 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg WRONG. Human aggression has to do with how we raise our children (trauma, suppression and the violence of the institution creates aggression). Hobbs Malthus and Spencer were wrong. Our closest primate ancestors are bonobos. Highly cooperative, non-violent, non-territorial. Aggression is not our nature.
immayhem 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg I am not a "Naive Idealist". Nowhere in my comment did I suggest that problems would not exist. Your strawman argument fails. However, I think that if you had followed my google advice, you would indeed find that suggesting companies would tyrannically control the right to procreate to be "melodramatic". You may not like the term, but it does apply to your assertion, whether you like it or not.
rmcdaniel423 3 weeks ago
@rmcdaniel423
'"melodramatic". You may not like the term, but it does apply to your assertion, whether you like it or not.'
"Naive Idealist".
Good day sir.
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg "In a real situation we've all seen multiple companies quickly, and easily, merged into a monopoly."
Name one.
jeffiek 3 weeks ago
@jeffiek
Sorry if you don't see the lack of competition when you go to Walmart. I don't know what area you live in, but wired phone is still probably controlled either directly (or through subcontracting) by ATT. When they had the big fight over telephone monopoplies some years back all that did was create subcontractors and create additional costs to those like MCI and SPRINT who were providing cheaper long distance.
Then there is Monsanto, Soy beans /Corn and other (EVIL MOFOS)
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@jeffiek
The mass media, who's ownership is shrinking daily.
ConAgra, Excel, Iowa Beef Packers, and National Beef who supply most of the beef to the country.
Ticketron. Tell me, if you made an album, and weren't signed, what record store is going to carry you at the mall?
coynedogg 3 weeks ago
@coynedogg Ticketron competitors:
"Competitors include Viagogo, New Era Tickets, Wantickets, Tickets.com, ShowClix, StubHub, Classictic, TicketBiscuit, Ticketbooth Enta USA and others. "
Source: wikipedia. org/wiki/Ticketmaster
ConAgra competitors:
Excel, Iowa Beef Packers, and National Beef
Source: YOU
Competitors to mass media:
youTube, google
And this is in a world with GOVERNMENTS THAT SUPPORT corporations.
Take you boogey-man bullshit and shove it.
jeffiek 2 weeks ago
coynedogg 2 weeks ago
@coynedogg And yet it's the Chinese government which forcibly imposes a one-child policy onto it's people.
TuxedoClam 2 weeks ago
Nice work! This conversation is gaining in popularity and you are one of the pioneers of a truly free society. It's a great place to be.
AndyWright68 3 weeks ago
So no policemen? Who arrests the criminals?
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago in playlist My Top Videos
@AustralianNeoCon Abolishing all powerful bullies with badges charged with enforcing hundreds of thousands of ridiculous laws and abusing and stealing form peaceful people would eliminate a huge portion of the violent crime in society today. Search YT, Google & FB for "Abolish The Cops". What we do about real criminals (violent people who use coercion on peaceful people) will directly address the problem without assaulting and caging up millions of people who have hurt no one.
AndyWright68 3 weeks ago
@AndyWright68 No offense, but this sounds like fantasy land. Police and laws have been crafted and honed for thousand of years to meet the needs of complex human societies. Tossing this out, and just 'winging it', is beyond foolish. With out some proof that this new law and order system will work, we have no reason to throw out a system that has been proven to work, JacobSpinney's 'theories' are not enough.
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon None taken. It doesn't sound like you have heard and understand all the arguments. Crafted and honed? Really? All that time? It should be well perfected by now then, don't you think? Winging it? No. Anarchy is a form of social order. We are not talking about every man for themselves but a voluntary based set of rules that allow free trade and competition among all services. This is going to be a multi-generational transition to a truly free society.
AndyWright68 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon Switching over night would be disastrous. You have good reason to fear chaos. But imaging the next generation or so being raised without violence and educated on how a free society could work and taught how to think critically instead of what to be(lie)ve and who they should bow down to. This will inevitably lead to an organized society based on the nonaggression principal. Statism will fall alongside chained slaver as being immoral and repugnant.
AndyWright68 3 weeks ago
@AndyWright68 America is not the country to test hypothetical ideas. You should set up your own communities and see what happens. You cant expect people to go along with an idea that has hundreds of unanswered questions, and has never been historically shown to work. Idealists like yourself use to think Communism was the solution and look what happened to that. Just because ideas sound good in theory or on paper doesn't mean it will work in real life, you have to prove it works.
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon Please actually watch the video you are commenting under before making any more comments.
JacobSpinney 3 weeks ago
@JacobSpinney I watched your video, all I can recall is your mentioning some scottish society or something, which got conquered from some other state. Perhaps there is no modern day non-state societies, exactly because they cant defend themselves and have all be conquered?
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon so what you are saying is, since states can ue violence to coerse a whole region they are needed. So that they can protect their region?
But since they are the cause of the problem to begin with that just means we add another problem to the list.
The commonwealth of iceland protected itself against Norway for several decades.
Not being a state dosent prevent you from protecting yourself but gives less incentive to invade others on behalf of your region.
SakakiDash 3 weeks ago
@SakakiDash A non-state is never going to be as powerful as a state, because states force all their citizens to pay towards a military. Non-states would have a military that is only funded by voluntary payment. And given all the peaceniks out there, I doubt they would get much funding.
Norway is like the most non-aggressive country in the world, I'd like to see a voluntary paid army go against an army like China's or Russia's which is funded by all their citizens.
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon The mistake you make is that the burden of proof is not on people like Jaboc who advocate non-violence. You believe society can only work if there's a coercive monopoly of force, so the burden of proof is on you.
janc71 3 weeks ago
@janc71 I'm afraid it is on Jacob. Hes the one arguging for a revolution. And given the bloody record of poltical ideologes that 'look' great in theory but fail in reality, I think we would need a large amount of evidence before we switch over. And there is plenty of soceities where the state does not have the monopoly on vilolence, its called the third world.
AustralianNeoCon 3 weeks ago
@AustralianNeoCon I listed historical examples of the kinds of societal systems I advocate; historical examples of societies that did not fall apart at all, but flourished. Please . . . watch the video before leaving yet another comment demonstrating that you didn't.
JacobSpinney 3 weeks ago
If u are in USA vote for Ron Paul. He says the same things .
11111111222223111123 3 weeks ago
Great now we just have to smuggle this into the public schools.
CloverfieldMonster95 3 weeks ago
A Brilliant exposition and synthesis of Mises-Rothbard-Hoppe anarcho-capitalism and libertarian thought. Wow--a tour de force. Keep up the great work!
KSASTAMPS 3 weeks ago
This video is great. Sad to say many still think the government is the pillar upon which progress stands.
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
Government is a function of civilization. If this guy hates the state so much and doesn't want to live under a governments authority, whats stoping him from moving to Montana and living off the grid up in the mountains? If you want to live in a society, live by the rules of the majority or else leave the society, nobody forces you to stay.
dan24b 4 weeks ago
@dan24b Civilization does not exist BECAUSE OF government, but in SPITE OF government. You attribute all progress that is passed barren wilderness to the good hand of the government? Quite the contrary, I attribute it to practices that are the antithesis of government's nature. The state prevents the civilized world from realizing their full potential.
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
past*
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
@nodeal22 Firstly, I NEVER said that civilization exists because of government, YOU claimed that i said that when I did not. I merely suggested that most societies since the rise of civilization have had governments. Secondly, I never attributed anything, either positive or negative to government but simply suggested that if you don't want to live under the authority of a government, you don't have to be a part of the society that has the said government. Go live off the grid in Montana!
dan24b 3 weeks ago
The state is not great unless you live in Sweden that is. There's no recession there, but they have lots of tax and big government .Well, I'm up for it, and so are they, iIf you are onto something good you keep it.
nivekvb 4 weeks ago
@nivekvb google Sweden myth, then retract your statement.
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
@nodeal22 it was on Radio 4 two days ago two days ago about how Sweden does not have a recession, and how they love their high taxes because it makes their country such a good place to live. This stuff is right up to date. We have had 30 years of neo liberalism freeing up markets and deregulating and all we have to show for it is the rich getting extremely rich and everyone else getting poorer, plus a crash in the World economy where the bankers still keep looting because of the lack of regs.
nivekvb 3 weeks ago
There is only one value in libertarism - what your economic worth is. People are reduced to nothing more than consumers in this so called libertarian utopia..
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb What's wrong with that?
leeknivek 3 weeks ago
@nivekvb we are all consumers and producers, and what we produce is exchanged for what we consume -- a system much better than a government that is turned to for the means of production, robs those who actually do produce, and gives to those who do not.
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
So there is loads of middle class kids who want legalised drugs and no cops. Hooray for libertarianism! That's about it really.
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb Not just legalized drugs, but the freedom to make personal choices. You own your body don't you? Why is a central force telling you what you are and are not allowed to put into it?
No cops? The fact that you think a police force would be absent in a stateless society shows your lack of understanding for the topic you criticize. Read up junior.
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
Thanks for taking the time to make this. Really well done, and I hope it reaches lots of people!
BookofNick 1 month ago
Sure, the gov may do some bad things, as there are always imperfect humans running it. But government is a prerequisite for a civilized society. Without this collective pool of money we would have no police, fire dept., public education, welfare, disability ben., vetrans ben., military, health care for the poor, libraries, road construction, etc. And if you left it up to people to choose whether they wanted to pitch in, nobody would, so we must enforce taxes, or our civilization will collapse.
tneighbors 1 month ago
a philosopher i always liked once said. the government governs best which governs least.
shadowmalik009 1 month ago
@shadowmalik009 I'm thinking this philosopher was suggesting that gov should not meddle with personal freedoms. I doubt he was talking about cutting taxes so low that we can't pay our bills and the income of the rich snowball upward until the rest of us starve on the streets. Tax cuts in the US help the rich far more than the poor.
tneighbors 1 month ago
@tneighbors all i did was quote Thurough :) i never said anything about the tax, but i do agree with what you said
shadowmalik009 1 month ago
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I thought I would put this out again. Libertarians only see people as having economic value, they don't see people as having true worth because are special to someone or are loveable.
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb ohhh, i would've thought the only belief system which protects and promotes individual liberty and self-reliance across the board would see people as having self-worth. my bad.
nodeal22 3 weeks ago
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More free? The idiocy of the argument lies right there. What is more free? Allowing the derivatives market to be deregulated is more free or allowing oil companies to police their oil rigs? The fact is support for impractical systems leads us to ignore basic realities of life - that markets need to be regulated because people's lives depend on it. FM concept believes markets will weed out inefficiencies but at what cost to society? The state protects our freedoms from ruthless oligarchs
nivekvb 1 month ago
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nivekvb 1 month ago
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nivekvb 1 month ago
You know, ever since I was a child, everyone has always told me the same thing; "The State is a necessary evil. It is corrupt, but without it, civilized society couldn't exist."
This video has done an amazing job of asking the question: why not?
Now, I've put years of propaganda disseminated through generations aside, and for the very first time, I've come to question how necessary that evil really is.
TuxedoClam 1 month ago
if you truly believe in a better world then don't waste a chance to tell important messages to all the people you think will listen to you. promote love and peace and education and intelligence, teach people how to think for themselves and give them a tour thru reality and be optimistic that by doing small work all together, teaching each other, improving ourselves, and learning from others, and each one of us doing it, we will make this planet our home paradise.
xbuster17 1 month ago
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nivekvb 1 month ago
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@xbuster17 So true. Libertarians only see people as having economic value, they don't see people as having true worth because are special to someone or are loveable..
nivekvb 1 month ago
here's more. force your state to legalize cannabis and forbid deforestation and tree paper. force them to pay ridiculous mounts say 100$ per gram of chemical industry waste unless harmless or properly disposed. and most important (specially for usaians ) try with all your spirit to convince everyone you know not to waste, to recycle, and that love is way more valuable than products or money.
xbuster17 1 month ago
not in a bad way but in the way that most of us aren't sharing a profound link with nature and the universe to "just know" we're to many people on this planet and it's resources. more of if the mind connection thing is not possible and we need the textual data then someone should collect that data , perform a census, and notice the people the stats...cause we might accidentally screw things up building of growing to much...and that would kill us
xbuster17 1 month ago
for this to be legal and well made not ending on a civil war then a direct democracy should be applied for instant representation or every individual allowing a state to take the communist and horrible decision (this is what a millionaire might say) to claim and redistribute wealth. and still for the transition stage it's necessary to be a state to make a fluid transition (and not thru nuclear warfare) into a sustainable alternative. control population and resources.
xbuster17 1 month ago
then freedom from state should be accomplished by some silly task like signing a paper, if you go alone, fine, here's some land, be happy. want more land? gather signatures of people who wants to live there, choose a name and randomly some inspector will go and see if they do live there. land size proportional to the people asking for it...but all lands has been sold already, even the moon. so the state should claim for real all lands except the one for personal survival
xbuster17 1 month ago
while states operate illegally with markets and shit people will always be in power. we should force them to declare global peace and respect for our planet. make them realize that we share the same home and if someone makes a mess then our home is messy. everyone should be able to be properly represented by ideologies or leave the state and form their own community. tho that independent community can't be non linked to the rest of the world in some way like un or intl court...
xbuster17 1 month ago
if people wouldn't die from starvation if they quit their jobs then lot's of mothers (and fathers) would quit or take an year "vacation" to raise their kids, be sure to educate them properly so they know what's worthy in life and what worth'd dyeing for in the past...state should also offer free vasectomies to the pop that way we wont have a million zillion kids with grey housing and food... cause that would make the problem worse... demand your state this things
xbuster17 1 month ago
think about it... if you have guaranteed free food and shelter you would quit your job and try to live for your artistic career. you'll be fine living in a gray state house eating gray state rice, if you're allowed to put posters and spice your food before becoming gray. ofc you'd be able to grow your own cannabis right?... there's lot's of countries lacking good public education and most countries education system sucks like they don't teach what they should instead they create employees..
xbuster17 1 month ago
i feel that now we have internet a whole lots of new ideas came in. i really liked the ranking system, that's awesome. i see that small populations are way easier to "control" and that we would work much better that way. most nations fought a long way to have free education, free health insurance. we should get to free food and shelter too. we also need to lower the population. that alone i think will fix the world almost completely...
xbuster17 1 month ago
i believe we should plan more how to deal with the now that to plan in the future cause no one knows the future... for now i think occupy should force usa into some new ways. they must modify the totalitarian position that some elite countries have in the UN. you must force them to recognize palestine as a state, perhaps then, groups of people would be able to form their own state thus owning their own land and applying their own law following some global hint of how we should coexist in peace
xbuster17 1 month ago
my point ( i guess) is that people should be good and loving and respectful in any system. even this one could work wonders if people did that. even if you had the perfect city plains and social organization book, you might fail terribly just because people don't wont to work or pay for it and the people and money you get to building that comes with corp or gob interests...
xbuster17 1 month ago
it's hard to think new ways of living with so many humans being so not supportive. i do agree most of the people will be happy within a small community with their own laws. if every state gave a free zone to whoever come and establish a place in the current day a lot of mafia would take over that to have even more secrets to destroy even more of the rest of the society...
xbuster17 1 month ago
no i'm not completely sure i agree now i think you're being a bit naive. we might change the view, it's not the state or the monetary system, or the corporations... it's us... we educating children generation after generation or more like degeneration caused by us. kids know murder cause we show them on the tv murder. we can teach them different but for that we must learn different, so keep thinking, keep teaching, never get of the internet since i think this will show the path to the future
xbuster17 1 month ago
Oh and Jacob and to all the retards that support him, move to a seperate Island.
Oh and better yet get off of the internet, it's backbone was created by the government.
mecher3k 1 month ago
@mecher3k The ARPANET, the first router and packet switching were all pioneered by Bolt, Beranak and Newman Inc. They were merely given a contract to develop a computer network by ARPA, which, by the way, was at the time headed by J. C. R. Licklider, who had originally had the vision of a global computer network, and who had also, by the way, previously worked at BBN. To say that the Government built the backbone of the internet is simply incorrect.
TuxedoClam 1 month ago in playlist My Top Videos
I just realized you ripped off hitchens title wise. Very nice.
breakingthe4thwall 1 month ago
@Jacobspinney
The very fact that you can't have an electoral system that always pleases literally everyone demonstrates to my mind why your utopian, anarcho-capitalist vision won't work. People's individual self-interest cannot always be prioritised above a collective greater good. That's why states came about in the first place; as a functional organ expressing a common will and providing certain things as public goods, not as some sort of artificial tyranny dreamed up by a few men's vanity.
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 Are you really so brainwashed as to think the state exists because people wanted rulers? No, the state exists because the rulers want it to exist. I don't blame you for thinking this way...you've had state education since you were 4 years old.
munkyusm 1 month ago
@Jacobspinney
Gallup has the current US government at a 46% approval rating. I don't know where you got 5%, but it looks like you made it up.
Point is that if you had elections so frequently that the government of the day always enjoyed unanimous support, a country would crumble. A 4 year cycle is about right for stability and Obama had a massive majority at the start. If people dislike his policies now they can vote him out. He won't 'coerce' people into leaving him as predisent if he loses.
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@ Jacob
I did watch the video. You referenced a mercantilist monoploy in thoroughly stateist medieval Europe that enforced a guild like system that conferred corporate priviledge. Celtic Ireland functioned on a communistic (primitive anarcho-syndicalist) level locally, but also had myriad petty kings COERCING their subjects into pointless wars that critically weakened the country and exposed it to foreign attackers (Vikings, Saxons, Normans). Neither is a good example of 'voluntaryism' at work.
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
business is not voluntary. you are under the control of a dictator.
Mr1700 1 month ago
@Mr1700 Are you kidding me? You can quit whenever you want. There is literally zero force that A) made you work there or B) forced you to stay there.
munkyusm 1 month ago
@munkyusm you cant quit whenever you want otherwise more people would do it. most people need some type of employment.
Mr1700 1 month ago
You an anarchist?
bweazel 1 month ago
40:55 SFX sounds like the ForaTV audio logo. The world is thinking.
jtropeano 1 month ago
@Jacobspinney
Finally, you claikm stateless societies have never been tried, but this is in a sense untrue. Modern Somalia, Renaissance Italy, Celtic Europe, none had proper, centrifeugal governments, all failed, degenerating into violence, feuds and petty private interests. Would you want to live in Somalia, with no legitimate state, no criminal justice service, no law enforcement and no societal cohesion whatsoever? They can't even feed their citizens (and while I'm at it, neither can charity)
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 I'm now convinced you never actually watched the video you're commenting under, or at least all the way through, as I did indeed bring up historical examines of stateless societies in the video.
JacobSpinney 1 month ago 7
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nivekvb 1 month ago
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nivekvb 1 month ago
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@TheAlfonz69 Just look at Afghanistan, I don't think the government gets much of a look in there. The place is just run by yobs, bandits, and warlords. These are the sort of people that seize control if they can.
nivekvb 1 month ago
@JacobSpinney
Details aside, I think you give government too much of a bad rap. Many states have degenrated into failure and violence, but in the western world, where legal and democratic consents are the order of the day, states are not the demons you portray; as sovereign entities they LEGALLY can use force and coercion, but POLITICALLY tend not to, for fear of losing the popular consent they require to exist. There is abuse of power even in democracies, but that is preferable to total chaos.
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 I believe our government right now has a 5% approval rating. Are you so sure that our government is run by the will of the people?
Why do you consider mob rule to be such a good system?
JacobSpinney 1 month ago
@JacobSpinney
However, if the security firms possess the ability to enforce such things they also have they ability to hold clients to ransom, and without a third party (i.e. the state) to mediate, victim's only recourse is to hire other contractors. Without that legitimate, moderating party, there's little in the way of private wars and feuds. Government may not be composed of infallible beings, but neither are corporations.
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 And what's to stop a state from holding clients to ransom? Oh wait, THEY ALREADY DO! This is not rocket science. If you have a monopoly, you are more likely to abuse your power. If you do not have a monopoly, you are more likely to stay in line, as everyone else will have the ability to gang up on you if you do abuse your power. The monopoly of a state has no such check and balance.
JacobSpinney 1 month ago 2
The problem is that we have a weak domocracy where governments are run by the rich, or rather the bankers. The libertarians want no regulations and so the banks can continue to freely speculate forcing prices up well beyond their true market value. This is a like a super tax system where money is collected for the wealthy but they do nothing to contribute to wealth creation. This sucks and it has to stop. Why should the powerful be allowed the freedom to run these scams stealing folks money?
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb The powerful always control government. They always have. The core tenet of the progressive movement are based on the premise of a benevolent elite of economic and social planners controlling the nation through government. "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. " Edward Bernays "Propaganda" (1928). This is a elitist ideology.
cornas47 1 month ago
@nivekvb You should oppose the government deficit spending then. Wall Street controls the sale of bonds used to deficit spend, so they make money on every bond sold through commissions. Government does not contribute to wealth creation. It is a drag on wealth creation. Keynesian economists believe that wealth creation is a side issue: Employment and consumption are claimed driving forces in an economy. Encouragement of consumption concentrates wealth with the economic elites
cornas47 1 month ago
@cornas47 If we nationlise the Fed, will not need anymore government bonds. We can then free ourselves from the shackles imposed upon us by the rich.
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb Supply and demand are not repealed by decree. The ratio of money to goods causes price increases prices. The Fed increases money supply (out of thin air} fuels the speculative and inflation forces that drive increases in prices on goods. Inflation guarantees successful leverage. Leverage accelerates wealth concentration with the elites. Therefore, deficit spending and Federal Reserve money creation, which you support, results in what you claim to oppose.
cornas47 1 month ago
@nivekvb You have no clue what you're talking about...
munkyusm 1 month ago
@JacobSpinney
You say that but without law, what's to stop free competition between securiuty contractors degenerating into violence? What's to stop people pursuing personal feuds through hiring them? What's to stop mass vigilanteism? And what is the difference between a landlord forcing people out of a property, and the state doing similar things? My point is that though states use force, they also prevent its abuse by non state actors, and are in most countries, restrained by law up to a point
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 What's to stop states from degenerating into violence? What's to stop people from pursuing personal feuds and hiring a hitman under a state? What's to stop mass vigilanteism under a state?
The difference is the landlord has a legitimate claim over the property, since he either built the house himself or bought it from the person who did. The state does not have a legitimate claim over the property, because merely pointing and calling dibs is not a legitimate way to claim property.
JacobSpinney 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 My point is that these problems you fear happening without a state can and do also happen with states. The only difference is that without the state the private providers of what used to be state functions will provide higher quality at a lower price, because you now have the option to decide not to pay them if you aren't satisfied. There will still be laws. The enforcers of those laws will just no longer have the right to steal from us and illegalize competing enforcers.
JacobSpinney 1 month ago
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@cornas47 Our goverment has been taken over by big business and democracy has fiinished. Texans murder their children at 11 times the rate of Italians. Don't try to tell me that people living in the ultra conservative states of America are better off than those living in France, or many other European countries. You are in self denial, sadly!. Why do you want to live in such a miserable libetarian dog eat dog world? Humans are very social creatures and united we stand, but divided we fall
nivekvb 1 month ago
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nivekvb 1 month ago
@Tethloach1 well, it might surprise you that you are completely wrong.. we have a right-wing government and our taxes never go past 30% and no swedes are not all about physical labor.. very little actually
GreenGuyofSweden 1 month ago
If the state has a monopoly on coercion and force, how is removing the state from the picture also removing coercion and force? Won't these things simply end up in the hands of people unconstrained by law, constitution, democratic scrutiny etc.?
TheAlfonz69 1 month ago
@TheAlfonz69 The state has a monopoly on *legitimized* coercion. Sure there will still be violence without a state. But at least the enforcers of laws who will help to minimize this violence will not have the right to use monopolistic coercion to sustain themselves, they will instead have to sustain themselves by providing a better quality good or service at a lower price.
JacobSpinney 1 month ago
@JacobSpinney I am astonished that people don't get this simple fact. Government uses it's "legitimized" coercion to to produce and create monopolistic situations in the economy. Congress passes regulation laws, which are then given to regulatory agencies. Those agencies are run by the same powerful special interests that are supposed to be regulated. So, they write the actual regulations which repress competition. It isn't the free market.
cornas47 1 month ago
@JacobSpinney Real life doesn't work like this. The anarchist world, complete with its 'private defense' and 'private policing' companies exists. It is called 'gang land'. It is called Sicily. The maphia are the real world 'private security companies'. This is what a society degenerates to without a central monopoly on organized force - brutal, bloody and sustained competition for power, silenced only when a single victor emerges.
The theories can be as pretty as they want.
tothemax01 1 month ago
Texas willingness to tax itself is near the bottom, but Vermont, in contrast, is at the other extreme. It is a high-tax, high-service state. In looking at key indicators of well-being, children from Texas are twice as likely to drop out of high school as children from Vermont. They are four times more likely to be uninsured, four times more likely to be incarcerated, and nearly twice as likely to die from abuse and neglect. So much for the benefits of the weak state and low tax.
nivekvb 1 month ago
Without the state the level (as a percentage of total population) of violence would be far greater. Look at any country where the state has collapsed (eg Somalia). Any large-scale anarchist experiment would quickly deteriorate into tribalism, with inter-tribal warfare.
"Gaelic Ireland was a land of continuous warfare, as túatha fought for supremacy against each other". Source "Irish frontier warfare: a fifteenth-century case study". Cormac Ó Cléirigh (1997)
CPS3344 1 month ago
@CPS3344 Using your logic we should have a world government, more police more restrictions more security, more regulations on everything who you have sex with alright then one curency the illusion of free will so two sides of the same coin. If that's what you want you just might get it. illusion is all you need, i for one would have freedom rather than the illusion of it.
Tethloach1 1 month ago
Everything he complains about is only a problem if you don't have democracy..
I'm a liberal but taxes are neccecary, capitalism is the worst.. It's one of the USA's grater flaws..
If your country elect a government that support war, then you can't f*cking complain when they use your tax-money to pay for it.
GreenGuyofSweden 1 month ago
@GreenGuyofSweden Don't you guys pay 75% taxs hmmm.... and 0 debt interesting. You seem morally corrupt, "tax's are necessary" If you don't believe things can get better than they will only get worst. In Sweden everyone must love psychical labour right? Sweden people love thier jobs so much they rush to get to work so they can contribute more money to the state.
Tethloach1 1 month ago
Oops! I forgot to mention, France has some of the highest taxes in the world too, yet it still outperformed the American economy. It looks like the state is quite good at getting business to work at their best.
nivekvb 1 month ago
Socialised France, with its 35 hr week, its expensive state medical system, it's huge bureaucracy, and its enormous amount of regulations, has consistently outperformed the USA economically since the 1970’s. And so have many other European countries it say's in the article: Stocks of Socialised Countries Have Outperformed US since the Reagan Era. And guess what, in France the state even supplies a nanny for 4 hrs twice a week to help out when you have a new baby. Now that is a nice country.
nivekvb 1 month ago
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DeeWox 1 month ago in playlist Flere videoer fra JacobSpinney
@DeeWox But do they outcompete Germany, where wages are 25% higher than Americans. The closer you get to a libertaran state, the poorer it is. Texas, where loads of ultraconservatives live and taxes are low, have some of the poorest people in the US. But northen social democratic Europe has produced great wealth for its people. If you compare high tax Vermont to low tax Texas, you get the picture, But it gets wost, Texas has the highrest child murder rate too. So much for family values
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb It's irrelevant how high the wages are. You have to look at the cost of living. And "poor" is a relative term. A poor man/woman in the US is WELL OFF. If you are in the US middle class you are better off than a European man/woman in the middle class. The same goes for the "poor".
DeeWox 1 month ago
@DeeWox Now I sure that the cost of living was taken into account, you can't use that cop out.
nivekvb 1 month ago
@nivekvb Cop out? Where are your sources? I live in one of the most socialistic countries in the world. Norway. We have on of the highest salaries in the world, yet (most of us) we are not as rich as the middle-class in America.
The cost of living is way to high.
DeeWox 1 month ago