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Bringing back the Somali shilling

jpkoning.blogspot.com

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Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#71

Post by thanksgiving »

afsina wrote: post #59
redblacktree wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What many libertarians want is decentralization. As much as possible. They probably want to get rid of all powerful Federal Government but local governments (as small as possible) and confederations are usually fine.

Just to be clear, injustice at the state level is still injustice. Oppression of minorities at the state level is still oppression. Dragnet surveillance at the state level is still a blow to privacy.

The state rights advocates like I said are the worst. States are too big. What we should focus on is the individual.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#72

Post by vacri »

jordanb wrote: post #12

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?

Vanuatu has what libertarians claim they want: no income tax; small government; happy people. The 800-strong army doubles as the police force. Not much in the way of government services, so the libertarian can pay all they want for their own garbage pickups etc. Yet they're not moving there in droves...

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#73

Post by beefield »

wyager wrote: post #56
beefield wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Libertarians don't posit a precise optimum. They are generally of the opinion that the optimum is quite a bit lower than what we have right now. > 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 exam…

To me, probably the most important market failures rise from information asymmetries. Not only the textbook cases where you know something I don't, but would understand if you told that to me (lemon markets for cars), but the ones where I am so dumb compared to you that even if you tried to explain me, I would not understand (monty hall problem as an extremely simple example). Even further, the issues where you manipulate me to want things that are bad for me, are a kind of information asymmetry.

The problem is that the latter concepts do not seem to enter mainstream economics or libertarian mindset. People (including me) are manipulable and stupid. And having no control how much stupid people are going to be manipulated for benefit of others, would end up very bad very fast.

What comes to Coase, here is an interesting example of Coase failures: http://evonomics.com/resolve-fights-reclining-airplane-seats...

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#74

Post by Pica_soO »

Grue3 wrote: post #52
jordanb wrote: post #12

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?

You're confusing Libertarians with Anarchists. As an aside: I've always been waiting for communists to declare North Korea heaven on earth.

Has it ever occurred to you that communism and socialism, that usamericanos fight so heavy against, might just be some red shawl on good ol' local patriotism? One huge middle finger to any foreign involvement what-so-ever, the propaganda scrawled to it, more or less un-important.

If some foreign power burned every village to the ground in my country, killed about a fifth of the people, i would do everything to join the opposition, and tell everything to make my opposition to this "foreign devils" more outspoken. Especially if those "Foreigners" support old colonial powers, that already rubbed the face of my father and grandfather in the dirt.

Satanistic, atheistic, communistic, decadent, drug-using, spartanic, ludist, nuclear armed country of Anti-USA, count anyone in after he has met US-Foreign Policys.

If the US-Sentiment would condemn the wearing of green hats as some outrageous ideology, half of the world would look like a leprechaun inhabited Ireland tomorrow.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#75

Post by Pica_soO »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
afsina wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

> What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Except for the Kurds, that doesn't seem to be want the groups in Iraq want. I wasn't aware that libertarians were generally in favor of imposed religious- and/or ethnicity-based balkanization against the will of the peo…

Eh all other groups want the whole country and the other groups pressed to geno-cidere?

Thats not a ideology thing, that is more a "Real-Politics" that worked with pakistan and india - kind of approach.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#76

Post by pjc50 »

afsina wrote: post #60
afpx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

> let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory

This is literally what ethnic cleansing means, and is of course the opposite of any kind of liberty - it creates a place where you can't walk down the street without being of the right ethnicity/religion.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#77

Post by afsina »

pjc50 wrote: post #76
afsina wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

> let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory This is literally what ethnic cleansing means, and is of course the opposite of any kind of liberty - it creates a place where you can't walk down the street without being of the right ethnicity/religion.

Oh that is such a stretch. Ethnic cleansing occurred in large, well established states already. "as small as possible" can go much smaller than what you have in mind.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#78

Post by afsina »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
afsina wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

> What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Except for the Kurds, that doesn't seem to be want the groups in Iraq want. I wasn't aware that libertarians were generally in favor of imposed religious- and/or ethnicity-based balkanization against the will of the peo…

AFAIK, Libertarians are not Utopians. If there is a choice, they prefer decentralization and secession. Underlying reason is not important (Ethnic and religious, or ideological). Besides, from what I know, in large sovereign states and large democracies minority or ruled ethnic and religious groups always suffer. Because they will be imposed the ruling groups culture, language and curriculum. If they want, they should have at least a degree of self control and identity.

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#79

Post by afsina »

pjc50 wrote: post #76
afsina wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

> let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory This is literally what ethnic cleansing means, and is of course the opposite of any kind of liberty - it creates a place where you can't walk down the street without being of the right ethnicity/religion.

Are implying that, for example, if Catalonia, Bask or Scotland become a country situation will be ripe for killing Spanish or English man living there?

Re: Bringing back the Somali shilling

#80

Post by afsina »

afpx wrote: post #61
afsina wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What libertarians would probably want first in Iraq is to let ethnic and religious groups to have the control of their own territory and abolish or weaken the central government as much as possible. Honestly this approach would at least alleviate the current turmoil there. Consider Syria, Iraq and Yemen for this.

I don't know enough about libertarianism, to be honest. (I'm not sure many people do.) But, is libertarianism something that only works when all tenets are followed? Or, does it work in piecemeal and incrementally? Like, for example, is there a priority list of things that should be implemented first and the set of measurable, expected results? This is probably not the best place to ask these types of questions, but…

Perhaps it is better to read some introductory literature on this. Rothbard - Hoppe, Rand or Nozick (All are different schools in libertarian thought AFAIK)
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