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Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

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Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#221

Post by aminok »

drieddust wrote: post #219
aminok wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He supports heavy taxes on private property. Tax laws are based on violence. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/enforcin... >Enforcing the Law Is Inherently Violent >A Yale law professor suggests that oft-ignored truth should inform debates about what statutes and regulations to codify. Socialist ideology relies exclusively on aggressive violence. >His argument is to have finanacial transparency whic…

> He supports heavy taxes on private property. Tax laws are based on violence I didn't get the same impression watching the video. Do you have any references? As far as Law and Violence is concerned, I agree voilence to some degree may be involved. So what is your alternative? No Law every man/group for himself? There is no such thing as No Law. Void will ne replaced with Natural Law in which powerful eliminates weak…

>Do you have any references?

http://taxfoundation.org/article/what-would-piketty-s-80-per...

>As far as Law and Violence is concerned, I agree voilence to some degree may be involved. So what is your alternative? No Law every man/group for himself?

The violence of Law should be applied exclusively against those who violate the human rights of others. It should not be used to take property from one group to give to another.

>Something of value is the operative word here. From where "something of value" comes?

I grab some clay, and create a nice figurine. You give me some sea shells in exchange for it. No one has a right to a share of my sea shells. If some group of people preaching "social democracy" violently assault me for refusing to hand over a share, they are the aggressors.

The social democracy advocates have done what Bastiat predicted:

>When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#222

Post by nabla9 »

aminok wrote: post #218
nabla9 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We either have a moral right to make exclusive use of natural resources or we do not. Others don't have the obligation to protect what you think is your right. Imagine the value of your property rights, if neither law nor law enforcement would protect it. >it's self-evident If most people disagree with you, it's not self evident. No amount of sidestepping arguments of others and continued preaching is going to convi…

>Others don't have the obligation to protect what you think is your right. True, but they also don't have a moral right to violate my rights. If the government merely stopped protecting private property from aggressive seizure, that would be one thing. But thanks to "social democracy" (demagogic democracy), the government has become the primary instrument by which people aggressively seize the property of others. >If…

>If they did consider it, I believe it would be self-evident to most what property rights are, and that violating them is an authoritarian infringement upon human rights.

So, you work on the assumption that me and most of the people you argue against are just misinformed and if you preach to them enough, this self evident universal morals is revealed to them?

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#223

Post by aminok »

nabla9 wrote: post #222
aminok wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Others don't have the obligation to protect what you think is your right. True, but they also don't have a moral right to violate my rights. If the government merely stopped protecting private property from aggressive seizure, that would be one thing. But thanks to "social democracy" (demagogic democracy), the government has become the primary instrument by which people aggressively seize the property of others. >If…

>If they did consider it, I believe it would be self-evident to most what property rights are, and that violating them is an authoritarian infringement upon human rights. So, you work on the assumption that me and most of the people you argue against are just misinformed and if you preach to them enough, this self evident universal morals is revealed to them?

>So, you work on the assumption that me and most of the people you argue against are just misinformed and if you preach to them enough, this self evident universal morals is revealed to them?

Yes, though I don't consider it preaching. I consider it informing.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#224

Post by dagss »

aminok wrote: post #207
ap22213 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse my ignorance, but how can one then have a concept of property without implying the use of force?

Force in defense of property is self-defense. Force in pursuit of other people's property is aggression. Aggression is the problem, not force in general.

But most aggression comes from disgreement over who property belongs to! Whose property is Israel/Palestine again? Who "owns" the air and can expliit the resource of increasing its CO2 contents?

Is it obvious that humans can own large areas of land simply because their grandfather did? If so, then in the case of US, why do you start tracking property after the natives who originally used it were forced off the land? And so on.

Property is not a simple concept and something to easily be for or against.

Property is almost always disputed and almost always linked to use of force somehow.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#225

Post by aminok »

dagss wrote: post #224
aminok wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Force in defense of property is self-defense. Force in pursuit of other people's property is aggression. Aggression is the problem, not force in general.

But most aggression comes from disgreement over who property belongs to! Whose property is Israel/Palestine again? Who "owns" the air and can expliit the resource of increasing its CO2 contents? Is it obvious that humans can own large areas of land simply because their grandfather did? If so, then in the case of US, why do you start tracking property after the natives who originally used it were forced off the land?…

>Whose property is Israel/Palestine again?

Yes, but we recognize that as a disagreement over who has legitimate claim to the property. With taxes, we take property that practically everyone, except the most snobbish socialist intellectual, and certainly the courts, would recognize as belonging to the individual.

It's on a totally different scale in terms of how certain we can be that it's a violation of property rights.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#226

Post by knucklesandwich »

aminok wrote: post #195
gilgongo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the idea of government intervention in the free market is classically dismissed by right-wing politics, the reality of the past 40 years has been heavy intervention by US and many other Western governments. However, unlike the forms of left-wing intervention that free-market thinkers decry, this intervention takes the form of tax breaks, bail-outs and guarantees against market failures by governments to industr…

A tax break is not government intervention.. And no, it hasn't been all 'right-wing' intervention, though I'd certainly agree that there has been a lot of that. There's been a ton of new 'left-wing' intervention in the form of growing welfare programs and authoritarian prohibitions on free association a la affirmative action, anti-private-discrimination laws, etc.

Hoo boy. Can't wait for the Rothbardian argument from you about why a marketplace for infants is a good idea.

Also love the revisionist history that welfare has in any way grown. It hasn't, in fact it's been scaled back dramatically since the 90s, and the consequences have been horrendous: http://www.demos.org/blog/2/12/16/welfare-reform-was-quite-b...

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#227

Post by knucklesandwich »

vanderZwan wrote: post #206
aminok wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government doesn't own what we receive in private trade. Taxing what we earn is government intervention. This is the conventional understanding. What you're doing is what Orwell describes as doublespeak.

> doublespeak This is rich coming from someone equating financial intervention with violence.

This is classic libertarian bullshit. Ask them how they enforce private property and watch the web of insane bullshit about how market intervention is "violence" unravels. Hilariously, the newest trend in libertarian thought is to embrace something like feudalism without reservation, which is basically the inevitable consequence of a libertarian society.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#228

Post by aminok »

knucklesandwich wrote: post #226
aminok wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tax break is not government intervention.. And no, it hasn't been all 'right-wing' intervention, though I'd certainly agree that there has been a lot of that. There's been a ton of new 'left-wing' intervention in the form of growing welfare programs and authoritarian prohibitions on free association a la affirmative action, anti-private-discrimination laws, etc.

Hoo boy. Can't wait for the Rothbardian argument from you about why a marketplace for infants is a good idea. Also love the revisionist history that welfare has in any way grown. It hasn't, in fact it's been scaled back dramatically since the 90s, and the consequences have been horrendous: http://www.demos.org/blog/2/12/16/welfare-reform-was-quite-b...

How about you act like a decent human being instead of making ridiculous strawman arguments against me?

Regarding welfare, I was being vague, so let me clarify: social welfare spending has increased substantially over the last 40 years in the US:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/what-is-...

In Western countries in general, social welfare spending is substantially higher now, as a percentage of GDP, than it was before the 1970s. Social democracy on the scale we have today is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Regarding your claim that welfare reform has had "horrendous" consequences, it is overly narrow and simply assumes no broader and longer-term negative consequences from compulsory income redistribution.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#229

Post by dagss »

aminok wrote: post #225
dagss wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most aggression comes from disgreement over who property belongs to! Whose property is Israel/Palestine again? Who "owns" the air and can expliit the resource of increasing its CO2 contents? Is it obvious that humans can own large areas of land simply because their grandfather did? If so, then in the case of US, why do you start tracking property after the natives who originally used it were forced off the land?…

>Whose property is Israel/Palestine again? Yes, but we recognize that as a disagreement over who has legitimate claim to the property. With taxes, we take property that practically everyone, except the most snobbish socialist intellectual, and certainly the courts, would recognize as belonging to the individual. It's on a totally different scale in terms of how certain we can be that it's a violation of property righ…

I disagree that it is obvious. Most of the taxes are a cut of income that would not have been generated if taxes had not been invested 20 years ago in education and defense and infrastructure.

And who granted anyone else the ownership right to destroy the air I breathe and destroy the climate I depend on? Some taxes are a way to compensate for that.

It is more like a forced VC capital investment in your life... you get a big chunk of education and defense and security paid for you, but if you hit it big you have to pay a lot back for it.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]

#230

Post by aminok »

knucklesandwich wrote: post #227
vanderZwan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doublespeak This is rich coming from someone equating financial intervention with violence.

This is classic libertarian bullshit. Ask them how they enforce private property and watch the web of insane bullshit about how market intervention is "violence" unravels. Hilariously, the newest trend in libertarian thought is to embrace something like feudalism without reservation, which is basically the inevitable consequence of a libertarian society.

Typical passive aggressive leftist bully talks to the crowd, over the head of the libertarian, instead of addressing the libertarian directly.

Way to go with the straw man arguments too.

Orwell on socialists:

>The first thing that must strike any outside observer is that Socialism, in its developed form is a theory confined entirely to the middle classes. The typical Socialist is not, as tremulous old ladies imagine, a ferocious-looking working man with greasy overalls and a raucous voice. He is either a youthful snob-Bolshevik who in five years’ time will quite probably have made a wealthy marriage and been converted to Roman Catholicism; or, still more typically, a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting.

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