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

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

#231

Post by aminok » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:46 AM UTC

dagss wrote: post #229

aminok wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 g…

If I mow your lawn without your asking, and you set up a lemonade stand on your lawn, and as a result, benefit financially from the lawn mowing service I provided, because it led to more people visiting your lemonade stand, that does not give me the right to threaten to imprison you to force you to pay me $20 for the service.

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

#232

Post by dagss » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:54 AM UTC

aminok wrote: post #231

dagss wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

If I mow your lawn without your asking, and you set up a lemonade stand on your lawn, and as a result, benefit financially from the lawn mowing service I provided, because it led to more people visiting your lemonade stand, that does not give me the right to threaten to imprison you to force you to pay me $20 for the service.

At least make the example straight: The majority of the neighborhood decided that all lawns should be mowed, because they don't want unmowed lawns that are bad for the economy.

And that neighborhood are the only ones who protect you from the squatters outside with nuclear weapons ready to take the lawn, so they think they have a say. (Unfortunately you are surrounded by neighbors on all sides, so they cannot stop rendering protection services due to laws of geometry). And they are the descendants of the neighbors who helped your great-great-grandfather take the lawn from the Indians in the first place.

I don't agree that there are cleae cut simple examples when it comes to property.

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

#233

Post by nindalf » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 10:58 AM UTC

aminok wrote: post #213

vanderZwan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"financial intervention" I would laugh if the ridiculous lengths you're going to in order to euphemize violence and imprisonment wasn't so fucking terrifying.

Logic and coherence appear to be playing an ever decreasing role in your comments.

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

#234

Post by aminok » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:02 AM UTC

dagss wrote: post #232

aminok wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I mow your lawn without your asking, and you set up a lemonade stand on your lawn, and as a result, benefit financially from the lawn mowing service I provided, because it led to more people visiting your lemonade stand, that does not give me the right to threaten to imprison you to force you to pay me $20 for the service.

At least make the example straight: The majority of the neighborhood decided that all lawns should be mowed, because they don't want unmowed lawns that are bad for the economy. And that neighborhood are the only ones who protect you from the squatters outside with nuclear weapons ready to take the lawn, so they think they have a say. (Unfortunately you are surrounded by neighbors on all sides, so they cannot stop ren…

I'm not talking about unmowed laws that are bad for the economy though. That's a negative externality for which there are many more justifications for government intervention (though not for an income tax).

It you want to nitpick on my thought experiment, you could also bring up the fact that a lawn is on top of land, and that there are strong moral arguments against an individual having a natural right to absolute private ownership over land, which in turns provides various justifications for government dictating land-use rules and collecting taxes on land/real-estate.

But I was not trying to make a comment on negative externalities or the right to private land ownership.

I was making the point that the government spending money on something, and this action ending up benefiting you, does not grant the government the moral right to threaten you with imprisonment to force you to pay for that something.

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

#235

Post by knucklesandwich » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:03 AM UTC

aminok wrote: post #228

knucklesandwich wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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

Love the calls for civility from the person proposing that anti-discrimination laws were bad. Also "the free baby market" isn't really a leap from any of these hardcore libertarian views.

> 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.

This has absolutely nothing to do with program expansion, it has to do with an aging population. It's an increased percentage of GDP because the population is skewing older: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs...

> 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.

We can debate about how absurd it is to say that the 50% of the population who can't work (and would provide basically nil extra productivity to the labor force if they were unjustly forced to rejoin it) shouldn't have income redistributed to them, but I suspect this is a point of philosophy we'll never agree on.

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

#236

Post by aminok » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:07 AM UTC

knucklesandwich wrote: post #235

aminok wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> How about you act like a decent human being instead of making ridiculous strawman arguments against me? Love the calls for civility from the person proposing that anti-discrimination laws were bad. Also "the free baby market" isn't really a leap from any of these hardcore libertarian views. > In Western countries in general, social welfare spending is substantially higher now, as a percentage of GDP, than it was be…

>Love the calls for civility from the person proposing that anti-discrimination laws were bad.

You say that as if saying anti-discrimination laws are wrong is uncivil. That is just whole different level of close-mindedness and intolerance to ideological unorthodoxy. I'm half-expecting you to call me a heretic.

You're completely missing the fact that I consider forcing (through threats of imprisonment) people to surrender their private property as a punishment for private discrimination to be extremely uncivil, due to its use of violence.

>Also "the free baby market" isn't really a leap from any of these hardcore libertarian views.

Deal with my arguments, not straw man arguments that you conjecture into existence.

>This has absolutely nothing to do with program expansion, it has to do with an aging population.

You clearly didn't read it.

Annual spending growth on various components of social welfare spending (1972 - 2011):

Pensions and retirement: 4.4%

Healthcare: 5.7%

Welfare: 4.1%

Annual economic growth over the time frame:

2.7%

Now that I've substantiated my claim that welfare AND social welfare spending have grown tremendously, you're trying to move the goalposts. You ridiculed me with your snarky put-down when I made the claim, and it turned out to be absolutely correct.

Your "but but" argument just shows how far your intellectual dishonesty goes.

>We can debate about how absurd it is to say that the 50% of the population who can't work (and would provide basically nil extra productivity to the labor force if they were unjustly forced to rejoin it) shouldn't have income redistributed to them,

Should we throw people in prison for not living up to your moral standards and giving to the poor?

You're ignoring this authoritarian aspect of what you're endorsing.

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

#237

Post by knucklesandwich » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:10 AM UTC

aminok wrote: post #230

knucklesandwich wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Yeah Orwell, the democratic socialist and Labour Party member, would have hated income redistribution programs. Orwell was anti-authoritarian, but he knew that the market left to it's own devices was just another incarnation of authoritarianism.

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

#238

Post by memonkey » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:19 AM UTC

aminok wrote: post #228

knucklesandwich wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I would LOVE to know what the negative consequences are of compulsory income redistribution and for whom. In fact, I wonder if there are any positives. Social democracy is OF COURSE a recent phenomenon -- I mean, what era are you comparing it to?

Furthermore, and not saying that I disagree about your comment on the New Left, but "free association" is a non-sequitur even in the society you wish to exist (which doesn't [sucks]).

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

#239

Post by aminok » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:22 AM UTC

knucklesandwich wrote: post #237

aminok wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Yeah Orwell, the democratic socialist and Labour Party member, would have hated income redistribution programs. Orwell was anti-authoritarian, but he knew that the market left to it's own devices was just another incarnation of authoritarianism.

I never said he would have hated compulsory income redistribution. I was just showing that even Orwell recognized that socialist movements are dominated by people like the "youthful snob-Bolshevik" (looking at you).

Orwell was wrong about the market. There is nothing authoritarian about voluntary interactions between consenting adults, even if said interactions involve the exchange of (god forbid!) currency.

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

#240

Post by aninhumer » Sun, Oct 30, 2016, 11:25 AM UTC

aminok wrote: post #202

loki49152 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism is a very specific ideology with a well-known, well-documented content and intellectual history. It isn't "just a process" for anything. Communism is evil because its ideology has no relationship with reality and will inevitably be a practical disaster anywhere it's implemented to the degree that it's implemented as a result. There's no escaping it any more than you can escape the laws of physics.

Communism is evil on a nightmarish scale because it advocates for violating an entire population's right to 1. their property, and to 2. engage in economic activity with other consenting adults.

No, to the extent that Communism can be considered evil, it is because it leads to terrible outcomes. You can argue that the outcomes are a consequence of not enforcing a property system, but it's still the outcomes themselves which are bad.