51–60 of 170 posts
Maybe I'm slow but I'm missing the proof-of-work aspect here? The article certainly doesn't mention it. Are you (gwern) referring to the work of the counterfeiters?
As an aside: I've been waiting for Libertarians to declare Somalia to be heaven on earth. I wonder why they've never picked up on the obvious real-world example of a nation with no central state government with a monopoly on violence?
As an aside: I've been waiting for Libertarians to declare Somalia to be heaven on earth. I wonder why they've never picked up on the obvious real-world example of a nation with no central state government with a monopoly on violence?
Libertarians typically want a small state that uses its monopoly on violence solely to protect citizens from aggression.
Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individuals is more important than fixing market failures (In which case I must wonder by what logic it is important for a government to stop me being killed by another person but not at all important to stop me being killed by a market failure? I end dead in both cases...)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You probably haven't looked that hard. Somalia case studies are ubiquitous in libertarian (anarchist-leaning) circles. The general claim seems to be that, yeah, stateless Somalia is way worse than high-functioning governments like the United States, but better than its neighbor states and better than it was before it became stateless. Leeson's article is probably the best on the topic: http://www.peterleeson.com/Bett…
> Somalia is way worse than high-functioning governments like the United States Yet my libertarian friends on Facebook all seem to want to tear the enitre government down.
Is that maybe what you're thinking of?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If George Washington declared himself king, you might be looking today at 30% unemployment like some of the euros
What is the point you were trying to make?
I dont think you can qualify government as "just one small part". America would not be in the same place today without the decisions taken over time by its leaders. The same decisions would not be made under a different system of incentives for a leader like a monarchy/anarchy
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Libertarians typically want a small state that uses its monopoly on violence solely to protect citizens from aggression.
I have never quite understood why libertarians think that is the precise optimum for the amount of government activities and their "theft" of my money via taxation. Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individu…
> Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve?
The only credible "failure" I'm aware of is the need to internalize of public externalities, which can be achieved in a number of liberty-friendly ways. See, for example, the Coase theorem.
Libertarians recognize that these models are not exact, but they do suggest that we can do better.
Perhaps you could list some of the market failures you are thinking of?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Libertarians typically want a small state that uses its monopoly on violence solely to protect citizens from aggression.
I have never quite understood why libertarians think that is the precise optimum for the amount of government activities and their "theft" of my money via taxation. Don't libertarians understand or accept that there are market failures that government is needed to solve? Or do they think that in every case government makes more bad than good when trying to solve market failures? Or is it just that freedom of individu…
https://mises.org/library/market-failure-myth https://mises.org/library/response-market-failure-drones
Thomas J. DiLorenzo's light book "Organized Crime" has some chapters about it as well. It is available there.
https://mises.org/library/organized-crime-unvarnished-truth-...
Gold coins are a proof-of-word currency.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You probably haven't looked that hard. Somalia case studies are ubiquitous in libertarian (anarchist-leaning) circles. The general claim seems to be that, yeah, stateless Somalia is way worse than high-functioning governments like the United States, but better than its neighbor states and better than it was before it became stateless. Leeson's article is probably the best on the topic: http://www.peterleeson.com/Bett…
> Somalia is way worse than high-functioning governments like the United States Yet my libertarian friends on Facebook all seem to want to tear the enitre government down.
As an aside: I've been waiting for Libertarians to declare Somalia to be heaven on earth. I wonder why they've never picked up on the obvious real-world example of a nation with no central state government with a monopoly on violence?
The Bush Administration, under Paul Bremer, tried to build The New Iraq as the ideal capitalist state. They even implemented many things that could never get full traction in the US, like very low, flat taxes [1]. I can't say that I followed much of it closely, but at least Iraq was inspired by right-leaning principles and ideology. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/11/02/u...