The Evil 1% (by Lew Rockwell)

Article: http://lewrockwell.com/rockwell/the-evil-1-percent194.html

Read by Graham Wright.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• occupy wall street
• occupy protests
• one percent
• the State

[straffsats]

@MrKuno46 No, is it the state that is the problem. Without the state there is nothing to "hijack". There can never be a benevolent state as power ultimately corrupts.

[dieyoung]

@MrKuno46 We suggest living in a world with a completely voluntary society

[bigboywasim]

@papabungle How is the current government model working in this world? I rather at least try it and see what happens.

[Ringvireot]

The ongoing problem with "Occupy Wall Street" is they're completely agitated about ecomonic invalidation of businesses. Regardless, the 99% of those people can violate the value theory of economics all they want because in the end neither the congress nor the White House representatives will ever attempt to stablize the financial situations and so forth. It's like saying a protest is abusing the First Amendment altogether.

[mjbarrowful]

Haha. I was arguing with someone earlier (billburns2) about the social contract. He failed so miserably it wasn't even funny. The social contract has no validity and can't even exist because contracts must be voluntary while state action does not

[Gumbo72203]

@darcmattr thats called the Catholic Church :D

[darcmattr]

the best slaves are the ones that don't know that they are slaves

[kDest]

@Tsudico

>>One important thing to note is that corporations are created and condoned by the state

The corporations created themselves. The state merely provides a legal framework. Without the state all you world have are big businesses who enforce themselves using less ethical means.

>>While corruption from business could still exist in a stateless society, it is more effective within a state.

In a stateless society, the corrupt RUN everyone else. The state exists to fight this.

[kDest]

@straffsats

>>Without the state there is nothing to "hijack"

And so you have wealthy, powerful men who exploit you directly. You are always going to be a victim, you may as well choose an institution designed to protect you.

>>There can never be a benevolent state as power ultimately corrupts

Our state was founded on very benevolent ideals. What happened is that we decided to make corporations into people, and then slowly they became super-powers running the show with government as the mask.

[Tsudico]

@papabungle One important thing to note is that corporations are created and condoned by the state. Corporations have gained special treatment through the state that wouldn't likely exist in absence of the state. Businesses have survived financial ruin due to the state. While corruption from business could still exist in a stateless society, it is more effective within a state.

[oshory]

@papabungle Fair enough. I think the government should steadily decline into voluntaryism. I still haven't done enough research to be 100 percent comfortable saying absolute voluntaryism is possible although I personally can see no morally superior alternative. But I do think government is running rampant like never before and needs to be curtailed. It would be nice if it would just fade away into voluntaryism over the next 50 years, if not, minarchy would be a welcome compromise. We will see...

[papabungle]

@oshory

I am personally still in favor of governments in the general sense. My primary problem with absolute volunteerism is that there is no evidentiary support for a modern society operating healthily. Politicians could very well have higher rates of psychopathy compared to the general population, though I am not aware of any official research on the topic. However, regardless of volunteerism or statism, the current system in the United States needs drastic change.