aggression
moving this anonymous comment from its origin, where it had nothing to do with my post. note to those others who've attempted to use my blog as a chat room: i'm moving this comment rather than deleting it, only because it's an important argument i feel like answering — otherwise, it gets trashed, same as any attempt to make this blog a chat room where any post may be hijacked with irrelevant comments. this is my chat room, and any comment that isn't at least mildly responsive may be deleted. that doesn't preclude anybody from insulting me, using foul language, etc; all that stays if it's somewhat on topic.Dear Pig,
Your blog blurb says, "when i see people lining up to buy ice cream from a neighborhood entrepreneur, i smile. my smile doesn't lessen just because the company gets bigger."
Here's a non-smartass question coming from actual curiosity to know what your viewpoint is.
What if the ice cream company not only gets bigger, but deliberately predatory, like (to take the example of a company I currently regard as a bad actor) WalMart.
When I hear people who are libertarian (which is where I THINK you're coming from), I'm totally with them on personal liberty issues and I really get the critique of how fucked governments currently are.this is an important comment. it highlights that liberty advocates haven't been successful in spreading primarily the ethical foundation of mutual liberty. it's tough, because most people are trained by environment to think of politics as problem solving — social engineering. however, voluntarists (what i am) believe that politics are only tolerable to the extent that they limit themselves to protecting people ethically from aggression, so that people can solve their problems. nothing wrong with social engineering, long as you confine your designs to yourself and those you interact with exclusively voluntarily.
But is it not the case that we now have people (one example among many: Cheyney/Halliburton) using their innate liberty to do massively criminal projects, in the format and under cover of "corporate enterprise." What do Ayn Rand-ians think about that???
Another example, the Federal Reserve. Almost 100 years ago it was set up by some very creative types who had sensed a huge power vacuum and moved right into it. It's the ultimate example of a free market action: The market involved here is the market in loaned money, and in fact the market in money itself. They set up, for themselves, without any guns to anyone's heads (that we know of), control over the issuance of money, planet-wide. (Of course they did this secretly for the most part, so it wasn't exactly an arms-length arrangement with the people who would be affected by it.) Now we have billions of individual people using THEIR human freedom to enroll themselves and their countries in debt to this clever, powerful financial system. No guns to anybody's heads. But even with no guns to heads, this system is truly oppressive, in my opinion.
Do you guys just say, well, it's tough for the ones that never in their lives get out of debt, BUT, the free market let that setup come into existence, and in the future when the market "shifts" in some mysterious way, maybe the market will allow a new kind of money economy that will spread the benefits more broadly. (Or what?)
Also, the money system doesn't have to use guns. It's my current belief that global-scale money interests have in some recent cases deliberately broken up the economies of whole countries (Argentina for example) intentionally creating fear and violence (riots) so that they could then move in with the solution: Stability, and for most people some access to the most basic human necessities, in exchange for increased debt, and in exchange for "governments" that are really under the thumb of the money people.
Nuff for now. By the way, I'm the one who found your blog by googling Brian what's-his-name.
aggression, as the term's normally used by voluntarists in this context, is the initiation of force or threat of force (they are essentially the same thing). if somebody breaks into my house and i halt his attack with force, that is not aggression, but defense.
the beauty of the liberty view is that it may be summed up in one sentence with clear application — not some fuzzy-wuzzed "i think people should be egalitarian, fair, and concerned" bullshit. my core principle for ideal human interaction:
no one (nor group of ones) may consider the property of another ("property" including self) in any way to be at the disposal of anyone except the owner(s), absent aggression or consent from that party.everything i do is to be held against that standard. every opinion on social interaction must either conform to that standard or i'm full of shit. so i'll use that to repond to your questions.
you ask about companies that get "deliberately predatory, like (to take the example of a company I currently regard as a bad actor) WalMart."
what is it about wal-mart's actions you consider bad? i oppose wal-mart, but probably on very different grounds from you. wal-mart is up government's ass, and has used "eminent domain" to steal property from others (doesn't matter that money changed hands; it was involuntary on the part of the "seller").
let's say some guy comes up to me, dragging a hot chick, and says, "i have made this woman my slave. would you like to stick your dick inside her?"
though she may be compliant because of his prior force, i can't fuck her voluntarily under those conditions. in the same way, wal-mart is evil to knowingly take advantage of government theft. just as i would be a rapist in the example, wal-mart steals via "eminent domain", so fuck them.
however, i guess that's not what you mean when you call them predatory. my only question of a predatory, tough business is whether they are interacting aggressively — initiating force. i've had this conversation with many people, and this is where it's very important to understand what the initiation of force truly is. i do not initiate force by merely doing something somebody disagrees with, or something which has adverse consequences for another. as i wrote in this article, if somebody sets up a competing lemonade stand and my customers voluntarily leave me for his business, no force has been applied to me, though my financial situation is worsened. tough shit! i don't own those customers. they are free. conversely, they don't own me, and, while i'm operating a lemonade stand voluntarily, may not morally interfere forcefully in my contracts with employees, vendors, etc.
now take that foundation and look at an example you gave. halliburton is not interacting with others voluntarily. government took money by force from society (exactly as is done by the mafia in "protection" rackets, except with less honesty), and halliburton positions itself to be the recipient of that theft. that's not liberty. just because a business was involved somewhere doesn't make it a market transaction. this is the sad corruption that keeps so many from embracing mutual liberty — they hear libertarian types defending business, and think in an unfortunate shortcut that anything calling itself a business is therefore supported by liberty advocates.
well, in many cases supposed liberty advocates cross the line. wal-mart's a great example. in countless examples, people fall over themselves to defend wal-mart from ignorant, immoral attacks, and end up so far up wal-mart's ass that there's no pulling them out. i've defended wal-mart on this site, but it was before i knew of their crimes via "eminent domain" (nasty euphemism for government-approved property theft).
i'll use an example of an ice cream vendor. let's say i sell ice cream at one location, and my business is growing to the point where i feel comfortable going to my primary milk supplier and saying, "benny, our contract runs out next month, and i'm here to renegotiate. my position now is that if you want to do business with me, you can no longer sell to Ice Cream Haven."
the average "american" would listen to that and start throwing out all sorts of bullshit buzzwords such as "anticompetitive". well, it's pretty fucking ridiculous to call a strongly competitive tactic "anticompetitive", don't you think? it comes back to voluntarism. have i initiated force against anybody by proposing this contract to my milk supplier? no.
if that rubs you the wrong way, stop reading for a while and just think about it. there is nothing wrong with proposing that contract. there's also nothing wrong if benny accepts and stops voluntarily transacting with Ice Cream Haven when his existing contract with them runs out. anticompetitive would be if Ice Cream Haven ran like a whiny bitch to government about this new arrangement, screaming "unfair!", and asking for the application of force against it (my and benny's new contract).
where this issue becomes fucked is when businesses accomplish the same thing (removing Ice Cream Haven's milk supplier) through "legislation" rather than 100% voluntary interaction. that is when all liberty advocates must shun them. no exception. sadly, this isn't done, and it screws the message of liberty via knee-jerk support of "businesses" that are truly only an arm of government. the primary culprit, however, remains government. it is through government that such "corporations" are able to dominate others with violent threats.
keep in mind that you can't logically look at a murderer, for example, and claim that he's using liberty to murder. no, whenever people like me say "liberty" in the political, social realm, we mean mutual liberty. for me to be free, so must those i interact with be free of aggression from me. similarly, cheney and halliburton aren't using their "innate liberty". they're using violence.
now to the federal reserve, which you also, somewhat cynically, are using to defile the word "liberty". the federal reserve is using government force to enrich itself. government uses the federal reserve to enrich itself. through mandatory deposit insurance, legal tender laws, and other bullshit, the US government has handed itself, illegally, and with force, monopoly control of banking and currency. fractional reserve banking (FRB) is a pristine example of this corruption. banking and currency are natural market techniques, not inherently evil practices. remember, currency, for example, is a wonderful innovation, not something to malign simply because governments have fucked it.
fractional reserve banking (FRB) is the practice of lending out money one doesn't have, which means that if all depositors demanded their money at once (a run on the bank), it wouldn't be there — there was not a 100% reserve. however, this it not necessarily wrong, despite what many liberty advocates claim. as i recall, even murray rothbard (generally superior and important liberty economist) attempted a voluntarist denunciation of FRB — unconvincingly, IMO. FRB, which is perhaps the primary tactic with which the federal reserve fucks the population, is an inherently voluntary market technique when done without fraud (i.e., all FRB contracts made voluntarily with full, prior disclosure). however, when one forces deposit insurance on others, and gives monopoly status to its currency ("federal reserve notes"), that's just evil. as with wal-mart, it gives the concepts of money and banking a bad name, wrongly. your assertion that the federal reserve was set up without guns to heads is incorrect. basically, all "legislation" is a gun to a head, usually where such force may not be rightfully applied. the federal reserve was invoked with legislation — a "legal" monopoly on the use of force (i.e., guns to heads) in a given geographical area — to enrich its principals via this force. it is systematic, habitual robbery, removed enough from most people's ability to understand. they troll along as sheep, beaten and stolen from all the while.
when you ask if people like me simply say, "well, it's tough for the ones that never in their lives get out of debt, BUT, the free market let that setup come into existence," no, i don't agree with that, because the federal reserve isn't a free market entity. however, that doesn't mean that all debt is involuntary, or that i believe people who can "never in their lives get out of debt" have a claim on my life. they absolutely do not.
for every example you come up with, simply ask yourself what part is the initiation of force. if there's none, i have no right to use or support force against it, no matter how i may disagree with it.
Labels: fractional reserve banking, liberty
posted by saltypig @ 06:32
The above is compelling & thorough. I am someone who is trying to resort my own values and life around a newfound understanding and appreciation for liberty principles and I have 2 follow up Qs.
What is property? Does it matters that some “property” is tied to states claiming the right to give someone ownership rights? If one owns land, it’s b/c at some point way back when, a state claimed authority to grant someone ownership rights over land being settled by emigrants, often even when “natives” claimed that same land. Does that matter today? If not in the US, does it matter places where land disputes are far from “settled?” (like the mideast).
Also, since your body is of course your own property, how do you apply that to parents and children? Is there an obvious line for what is or is not initiation of force against a “minor? A parent gives a child a swat on the bottom for not listening and being unsafe near traffic. A parent paddles a child for lying. A parent forces a kid to eat every bite of dinner. Or a parent beats his kid senseless. Etc. Tied into this is the definition of a “minor.” 18 is pretty arbitrary, so is there another solution that wouldn’t be?
Thanks.
I'm the anonymous that posted the "Dear Pig" question. The anonymous who posted at 19:34 is a different anonymous.
since you guys can't decide what to call yourselves, i'm calling 19:34 "billy bob", and dear piggy "scrote". yeah!
billy B, good for you, searching for an ethical framework. be aware, however, that once you start down that path, it's frustrating as hell to look around and notice with new eyes the violence that drives "good government bullshit".
your property question is solid. nice work. this is a huge subject in liberty circles, and there's also plenty of dispute. the land question is what keeps many otherwise straight-thinking former socialists from embracing liberty entirely. i'm not going to go into it much here. i recommend you start with murray rothbard. basically, standard libertarian theory is that one owns property when he combines his labor with it while not crossing prior paths of similar laborers — homesteading.
if you don't feel like jumping straight into whole books, give these chapters from two different rothbard books a look.
chapter 2, For a New Liberty
and
chapter 8, The Ethics of Liberty
few write so engagingly of such complex topics. it's important when discussing land ownership that you not get hung up, as many do, in comparing voluntarist theory against perfection; compare it only to the current mess. when it comes to land ownership, the only full contentment will be when everybody's dead. yeah, it does matter that the state claims property by "authority", and rothbard discusses this in The Ethics of Liberty using an island scenario (the classic economics sandbox for the brain).
re your question of property rights, parents, and children, not to sound like a cultist or something, but i can think of no better reading on that subject than chapter 14 of The Ethics of Liberty ("CHILDREN AND RIGHTS"). take it slowly, and prepare to have your mind blown! it's some good, frightfully logical stuff. i don't agree with rothbard completely there, but he's taking a splendid line. a real pleasure to see his unapologetic, sparkling brain at work. such a good writer.
my opinion on hitting children is that it's a disgrace. how parents expect children to come out of that positively is just fucking nuts. they're being trained to deal with frustration through violence, and shown with every nuance that they are to be subjugated through force. hmm... sound familiar? pretty sick. most never grow out of it, though they do find smaller victims on which to unleash their frustration. and the circle spins.
hearing you talk about the arbitrary age line of "minority"/"majority", i know you're going to dig chapter 14 in EoL. savor it, billy bob.
Thanks for the references. I’ll need to reread and read the whole book, but on first pass a number of things make a ton of sense – the concept of transformative work conveying ownership rights – and that of defining the age of majority as the age when kids can and do leave. That is genius. Right into my parenting hamper it goes. Just like other parts of parenting, if you quiet your own BS, you can’t help but see when they grow out of something they previously needed. Of course, it makes perfect sense. Some stuff on parental rights & obligations I’m not sure I agree with, but Rothbard is consistent. That alone is worth jumping up and down with applause for.
I agree with you on hitting kids. I try not to use *any* force on mine. Tho’ he’s very, very young, we use simple explanatory words to guide rather than require behavior we’d like to see, and let (even encourage) him do almost anything that won’t cause him immediate severe harm that he developmentally can’t yet choose to avoid or not. Doesn’t go over so well in public, but I don’t care.
And as an unexpected perk for my brain, I now fear a personal tendency to become a utilitarian freedom lover, which seems like almost the worst one could be – liberty only when convenience deems it? Will require thinking and guarding against accidentally traveling that path….
While you’re tossing out superb homework for nascent freedom lovers, got assignments that cover the topic of “how do we get to there from here?”
Billy Bob suits, but Bettie Lou would be more fitting.
okay, bettie is fine, but it needs to be bettie boo, since i already did the BSquare thing.
more parenting articles you might enjoy:
Non-Coercive Parenting (or A Person is a Person No Matter How Small)
The One Thing Guaranteed To Work
Farmer Boy
i have never been a full parent, but i did have a kid i ran into every two weeks once. i found that one of the most important things a parent can do is avoid saying something he doesn't mean. it's just a joke to be in the grocery store and look at all the lamers telling their kids 50 million times, "the next time you do that, i'm going to [blah blah]."
the kids know better than anybody exactly how full of shit their parents are. it becomes an attention game, and the kids are so addicted to it, the negative attention (even violent) works just as well.
one of the best tips i got when i was a young, frustrated demi-parent, was to transform requirements into choices. for example, if i needed my daughter to go to the car and she was engrossed in something (and, having respect for her, i'd given her advance notice we were going to be leaving), rather than getting belligerent, i'd just say on the first sign of refusal, "we need to go. would you like to walk to the car, or should i carry you?"
she laughed and said, "carry me!"
keeping in mind that bluffing is a dangerous parenting technique, i kept it positive and carried her to the car with a good attitude, rather than turning it into a "wrong answer" struggle. what mattered was that we were both in the car on time, without anger. after that, her natural independence led her to answer, "i'll walk." works for almost everything. instead of "you have to eat your carrots and your beans", it becomes "what would you like to eat first — your carrots or your beans?" LOL
that whole forcing kids to eat certain foods drives me nuts.
took a STEP class, and that was helpful, though a little bit illogical and touchy feely. despite the moronic-leftist taint to some of it, there's a lot of good material that can be corrected and used. for me, a clueless 20-something nomad with a toddler every other weekend, it kept me sane.
[...] and let (even encourage) him do almost anything that won’t cause him immediate severe harm that he developmentally can’t yet choose to avoid or not. Doesn’t go over so well in public, but I don’t care.
man, that public one is tough. i had the "advantage" of reading some pretty good books and then having a week and a half to regroup every visit, but i remember one time in a long checkout line where my daughter was just super cranky, crying and making a scene. most "parents" expect you to console or berate, and put up a big demonstration of action. i took the harder route, which was to do nothing. got some serious glares from women in the line, but eventually my daughter learned that there was no payoff. of course, were it in a movie theater or something, i'd have made one request for silence, then immediately leave if it didn't work. there's a limit to how much ambient victimization you can put others through for the sake of your child's education.
I now fear a personal tendency to become a utilitarian freedom lover, which seems like almost the worst one could be – liberty only when convenience deems it?
it's a reasonable fear for many, considering how most people calling themselves libertarians these days are imposter scum. just remember: principle first. no apology for demanding liberty. if liberty in markets and everywhere else has a better financial result or whatever, great. however, it's not the reason for demanding it. that's a trap.
the topic of “how do we get to there from here?”
there you go. that's the impossible question we all go through. i wrestle with it daily. aside from living morally yourself, i think this article is probably the best answer on the subject for most people. i've written about similar and others, and i've read countless attempts (it's the holy grail of liberty seekers). life is a fight. going to be some messy years ahead. i give the US about 20 years more, tops. most "american" fools don't care about being robbed and stomped to a point, but i think the crumbling of "social security" is going to spark the required avalanche. this is where hoppe's contention of the superiority of a monarchy bears weight, since no transitory politician is going to address the looming disaster. who's going to "elect" somebody who says "let's take this pill right now"?
i hope i'm alive to watch it fall. if i am, it will not fall on me.
We do lots of choices too. And we avoid the BS choices that really aren’t…. e.g “Would you like to finish your dinner or have me sear your tongue with a branding iron?” LOL. I personally can’t get away with asking my son if he wants to walk or to be carried. Even though he’s under 2 he knows what’s up with that! (and says simply “no.”) I can use, “Would you like to hop up the stairs like a bunny or like a frog?” “Ribbit, rabbit,” he tells me. Well, there you go. And everyone’s pretty happy.
My biggest public frustration is having other parents tell me what my kid shouldn’t be doing - like climbing a rock wall at a playground; that’s for older kids, doncha know? As a matter of fact my kid is a natural and can scale any climbing wall he’s ever seen with few slips or falls. I have a nice standard answer, "It's surprising you'd take such an interest in my parenting choices, since we've never even met; perhaps you had the best intentions, but we're actually all set here. Thanks anyway." I always say it politely and it works like a charm! I even think I'm helping prevent that person from butting in in another situation in the future by gently calling attention to their buttinskiness in a sort of hearable way.
So best advice for freedom lovers is live your own life morally, then just wait and be ready to take care of yourself. The third I’ve been working on for a while, as it's clearly impractical to expect anyone else to do it, and not as much fun to want anyone else to do it. The first is always a work in progress. The second part, the waiting, won’t come naturally to me at all.
Thanks for a helpful conversation. I appreciate the time.
BBoo
BS choices that really aren’t…. e.g “Would you like to finish your dinner or have me sear your tongue with a branding iron?”
right! that's exactly the sort of "logical consequence" that the STEP robots would throw around. at one of the meetings i couldn't take it anymore, and said that what was often taking place in STEP proposals was merely punishment via disguise formula, not truly logical consequences. now, years later, i realize that it was a property rights foundation missing from the equation. we were all running blind.
butting in. ugh. always sickened me, especially when trying to let my daughter solve problems for herself. so much of modern "parenting" is solving every problem for the child. total lack of restraint. that's what i loved about the book Farmer Boy — how the father included problem solving by leaving the kid alone.
I wasn't going to bug you again, trying to be respectful of your time... but I watched V for V (first time and second time) this weekend, and it made me wonder why you think the collapse of SS, rather than something else (e.g. having people become aware of corruption at a massive level as in the movie + the courage of a few) might precipitate the collapse of the USA gov't as it is.
Thanks again in advance for sharing your thoughts.
BBoo
hey, BSquare. my general SS collapse discussion isn't predicting the thing that's going to skewer the US; it's more that if nothing else does, that will (i've talked about it so much that i may have said something without my usual caveats). there's plenty of room for reaction to some bogus or real terrorism to do it. US society's quickly becoming surprisingly unstable. i don't have much hope in society clamoring for liberty though. most people are content to be led like dogs. it's worsened in the US though, because these pathetic assholes consider themselves immune from totalitarianism.
oh, i love VfV. such a tasty movie. the more you watch it, the more you'll find. those hollywood creeps surely lucked out on that one. if you listen to them talking about it, you realize how close liberty lovers came to being screwed by a socialist disaster. the film is almost 100% pure. a miracle.
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