Myth: Government inevitably expands.

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Note: This video is part of a series which debunks myths pertinent to laissez-faire capitalism. Many points not addressed in this video can be found at the above link.

http://Beingism.org

If an archer is aiming wide to the right of the target, we could advise her not to adjust her aim to the left for fear that she might miss the target by going wide in the other direction. On the other hand, if we keep thinking this way, we're never going to get any closer to hitting the target.

It is probably true that so long as a significant amount of people's needs are not adequately met by businesses and other private interests, they will continue to lobby government to find ways to have those needs met. However, there's no evidence that continued involuntary government expansion is inevitable. A happy population has no need to clamor for government intervention or political change, and an unhappy population is as likely to advocate for an end to nonfunctional or harmful government programs as they are to advocate for additional programs to help themselves.

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[AroundSun]

@ineptsegue what? youre alive? oh yea probably from my money and welfare. go get aids, i dont listen to collectivist puke

[AroundSun]

tell this little collectivist clown to go kill himself

[AroundSun]

@ineptsegue If you strip politicians of their power, they can not play favorites and benefit their friends. There are no conflicts of interest, everything would be through voluntary cooperation. Private interests don't have abusive power because they are in business because of the people, they can only get power government gives to them (favors).

[Skyler827]

@ineptsegue I'm not sure how else to explain it. Beingism says that checks and balances and "transparent government" can hold governments accountable, but such a proposition is frankly laughable. It also says that there are always "institutions with power" and presuppose that a threat of violence is somehow part of that. The power of persuasion and the power of threating are completely different, and the vid justifies the existence of one with the other.

[Skyler827]

@ineptsegue You see, neither do I. Power should be given to no one. No one has a right to order anyone around. The only actions that are valid between any two parties are those based off of mutual consent. Any nonsocialist republic inevitably is run by private interests, because there will always be a fortune to be made in lobbying the government. This would be impossible in any society based on free associations of people, no laws, gov. policies, or power to cede.

[Skyler827]

In the end, what the people want never has, and never will dictate what those in power do. No matter what the people want, if a society is approaching a level of prosperity, freedom, and free thought that causes the people to question why they need a monopoly on the use of violence to protect them, the state has no other option but to impose new programs on the backs of such a society. What happens is never necessarily what the people want. Read the history of any historical prosperous empire.

[Beingism]

@JohnColt Addressed here: Myth: All (or virtually all) important goals in society can be addressed by the profit motive.

We don't care how mainstream you are, but you might consider that economists don't take anarcho-capitalism seriously. Meanwhile, just because (from the far right) you can spot similarities in our viewpoint with Marx doesn't mean you can equate our views. Marx understood that market distribution isn't always right by definition. So do we. So do mainstream economists.

[CausalCrunch]

@CausalCrunch I should point out that as a percentage of our GDP, the government is actually smaller than it has been at times in the past. In 1962, we were at 18.8% of GDP, as of 2001 we were at 18.4%. But it does fluctuate up and down. There's a website from the CBO (the non-partisan congressional budget office) with these stats.

Their projections on their website don't look so great, but they are just projections. None-the-less, we must find a way to avoid their conclusions.

[CausalCrunch]

@JohnColt I think you're right about military spending. However, you must put it in context. When one country spends more than half of the global total expenditure on the military, it has some room to shrink without being meaningfully smaller (currently we've come down to a bit less than half).

[CausalCrunch]

@JohnColt Right, because there would be dangerous conflicts of interest. Just like in other areas. There are dangerous conflicts of interest when private companies insure your or my health. There are dangerous conflicts of interest when private companies drill for oil off our countries shore and therefore have to decide between safety and profits when deciding which drilling procedures to use. There are also dangers when private companies have monopolies over critical human resources.