"Umm, you haven't been following what conservatives actually do. Oppressing the most vulnerable is a giant piece of it"

I mean, I'm not conservative, so you won't be getting any argument from me on that point.

"libertarians are comfortable with letting oppressors oppress"

Not particularly. I mean, libertarians are vastly unorganized as both an ideology and a party. But I will say that historically government has consistently been used as the most common tool of oppression. Because of that, government should receive major limitation. Among the few things government should do includes preventing private oppression.

"but libertarians will never lift a finger to correct an injustice"

Only Sith deal in absolutes.

"And the basic points about democracy and taxes are in fact spot on. Contributing your fair share as determined by the majority isn't theft, it is being a good citizen."

Similarly, I feel that the taxes in place shouldn't disproportionately injure those more desperate for their money. Like sales tax. Oklahoma depends on it and we're very fucked.

"Unless you want no social services, in which case move somewhere without such services."

Throwing around social services Willy bully is irresponsible. Government services should be necessary not something that just sounds cool.

"knock it off with this asinine "taxes are theft" bullcraap."

Ah yes supporting those who need their extra dollars to survive is bullcrap.

"Convenient for the white guys"

You mean the ones who've historically controlled and manipulated the government for years? The ones who've used it to give their interests particular advantage?

JY: "slavery did NOT create the American wealth and prosperity. in fact, removing millions of wage earners from a market has BAD effects. that's why the Union in the civil war was at the cutting edge of industry and technology and the south was barely developed, rural and agriculturally based. the institution of slavery hurt our economy"

Such bullshit. The Union had like 3 times the population of the Confederacy in 1860, and they had a longer track record of actual colonization by significant numbers of people--Jamestown and Plymouth survived, whereas Roanoke did not. (St Augustine doesn't count because it had to be acquired from the Spanish by treaty)

Amazing Great Lakes ports and the Erie Canal accelerated industrialization from interior America. The watersheds of the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio River (which ) was pretty a freaking amazing way to connect too--there was plenty of commerce that you didn't need to go South, but you could. However, the rivers east of the Appalachian mountains pretty much kept the South from all that development along the as their watersheds flowed *away* from the greater prosperity in the thriving Midwest and upper great plains. Wheat is more useful than tobacco.

But go ahead. Keep bashing your head into a wall trying to convince yourself that it was the IDEA of the free market that caused the South to lose the Civil War. Geography, resources, and 250 years of prior history and economic development clearly had nothing to do with it.

@Jeff Kuta

"Such bullshit. The Union had like 3 times the population of the Confederacy in 1860, and they had a longer track record of actual colonization by significant numbers of people--Jamestown and Plymouth survived, whereas Roanoke did not. (St Augustine doesn't count because it had to be acquired from the Spanish by treaty)"

um... this is WAY after initial colonization, so that doesn't matter as much. furthermore, i never said slavery was the ONLY reason why the south lost, i'm just making a point that slavery did not help build America to be great. the south's reliance on compelled labor made them less adept at looking for capital intensive solutions to revenue problems.


"Amazing Great Lakes ports and the Erie Canal accelerated industrialization from interior America. The watersheds of the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio River (which ) was pretty a freaking amazing way to connect too--there was plenty of commerce that you didn't need to go South, but you could. However, the rivers east of the Appalachian mountains pretty much kept the South from all that development along the as their watersheds flowed *away* from the greater prosperity in the thriving Midwest and upper great plains. Wheat is more useful than tobacco."

once again, you're sticking on the idea that my argument is that slavery and slavery alone cost the south the war. it did not. there were a myriad of economic factors supporting the north in industrial might. among them, one was slavery.


"But go ahead. Keep bashing your head into a wall trying to convince yourself that it was the IDEA of the free market that caused the South to lose the Civil War."

WHAT? i NEVER said that. i mean holy shit what a blatant misreading of what i said. i'm ONLY stating that slavery was not economically prosperous, and was one of many factors that hurt the south.


"Geography, resources, and 250 years of prior history and economic development clearly had nothing to do with it."

my god you're intellectually dishonest. i MENTION a single factor, and you pretend that i believe it's the ONLY POSSIBLE THING AT PLAY. fucking ridiculous. this is practically a smear job, but since you're going to twist what i say, let's get some outside opinions in.


https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/aug/15/economic-case-for-ending-slavery

https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2017/04/24/why-slavery-wasnt-just-a-monstrous-evil-it-was-also-bad-economics/#2e41f5af12a1

https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic-history-2

http://kgou.org/post/why-modern-day-slavery-drag-economy-and-environment


of course you're not actually addressing my point, because if you stayed on topic, you'd find that i'm right. slavery is bad for economies. the south had slavery. the south's economy did not succeed as much as it could have without slavery. this was a factor that helped them lose the civil war.


and while we're on the military analysis of the civil war, the south had a massive land mass to defend, with no major focal points of military importance, the knowledge of locals and the terrain, and the north had to be an invading force, in a land with more diseases they're not naturally immune to, fighting a demoralizing war, with massive supply chains that had to keep linked.

this was not cut and dry northern domination, in fact at the outset, the south had a seemingly better chance at staying separate than we did against the British back in 1776 (where foreign intervention and financial burdens saved our butts). now don't get the wrong, i'm against the south and i think it's dumb to still have the confederate flag as some kind of prideful thing.

@JK

but answer me this. we had colonization of the south still in much of the 1700s and in much of the 1800s. with agriculture as a focal point (it's how the north got started) they amassed amazing amounts of prosperity.

with this wealth, why didn't we see in that century ANYWHERE near the level of industrialization of the north? why were there no major industrial cities on the coasts in the south: not even one? i mean we're talking about areas less affected by snowstorms and tropical storms, with consistently less property damage over the years (per capita adjusted). we're talking about a location that's not already be taken over by corrupt politicians. this is PRIME ground for investment, but none came.

i'm not saying the lack of slavery solely drove the north, but the institution of slavery DID blind the south. the politics of slavery incentivized large plantation owners and politicians to keep investment centered on agriculture. it created an oligopoly of sorts, where progress was hindered.

this undeniably stunted the south

let me correct something i just posted: they amazed amazing counts of MONEY. not overall economic health, but the landowners there create oligopolies of extreme value, if the overall economy was slow growing and very unequal

amassed* bleh bleh bleh

Dearest Dipbro Brainbomb, I just don't believe that you are as selfish and stupid as you would need to be to embrace the ridiculous right wing ideologies involved.

@JY re: slavery and economic develoent.

Ok one arguement made by those in the south for slavery, was that they treated their slaves *better* than industrialists in the north. Because when you own the worker, you have a vested interest in keeping it fed and health. While in the north they only rent the worker, so they don't care if he dies.

Now i'm not in favour of slavery, but by this arguement, it is clearly possible to claim people in the North were more exploited by their capitalist masters.

So you have to factor that in when talking about the exploitation which facilitated the growth of the US. The other factors include the availability of land to expand into - whether that was Spainish Florida, or the Lousinana purchase, or the migration of white people to Texas (where they claimed the land on their won, and later got government backing) and of course the removal of Indians from their lands by force (not particularily concensual, in fact most of the treaties they did agree to were later ignored... And many those treaties were signed under threat of force so were coerced not necessarily consensual)

Exploiting workers (wherher slave or wage labour) is one factor, exploiting land is another. A third is the massive influx of migrants, which meant the US grew faster than natural population growth would have limited it.

Now you can point to the libertarian ideals, an how this made the US growth more efficient than it otherwise would have been. But you can't deny there wouldn't have been anywhere near as much growth if the US hadn't had these other factors (cheap availability of land to expand into must have a massive impact contrasted with land in europe which was already all owned by someone...) - not that i'm claiming european monarchies and empires at the time were necessarily better. Just disadvantaged by not having room to grow (both economically and physically).

The availability of resources, both human and physical, made the growth of the US possible - but is no on its own sufficient to explain the difference between the economic development of the US contrasted with say, Russia as it expanding into Siberia, of the Spainish Empire as it expanded into South America.

That said, it is also correct to point out that Northern Capitalist had an incentive to replace workers with machinery - to reduce the cost of wages - which was not an incentive in the South. That means there was more room for capital investment and growth (Economic growth and tech development - which works in the similarily to land growth in the it expands the space for production of goods, by concentrating the delivery of energy into machines which can do more work on less land).

This was 'possible' in the South, but it wasn't so economically viable, because the vested interests - ie those with the capital to possibly invest - saw that they would get better returns by investing in more slaves and more land. Of course anyone who wanted to invest in tech could have gone north, but that would have meant giving up their slaves, so that wasn't a reasonable option either.

"But I will say that historically government has consistently been used as the most common tool of oppression. "

YOu would say that. And you'd be pretty freaking wrong. There's the whole slavery thing, all done by private actors, and the endless discrimination today. Neither by the government. In fact, GOvernment typically weighs in heavily on the other side on this equation.

And on taxes, that's not "taxes are theft" it is about regressive v progressive taxation. and I and most Americans agree that our current system is far far too regressive. except of course for conservatives who want to heap ever more tax cuts on the rich.

And if you ignore the value of democratically determined social services and goods, then you've pretty much missed the point. Yeah, "taxes are theft" except for that whole reality thing. In the real world, it is a bullshit theory.

Which is sounds like you agree with.

"YOu would say that. And you'd be pretty freaking wrong. There's the whole slavery thing, all done by private actors, and the endless discrimination today. Neither by the government. In fact, GOvernment typically weighs in heavily on the other side on this equation."

Dred Scott
Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution
Three Fifths Comprise
The Civil War
Trail of Tears
Japanese Internment
Espionage Act
Racial Profiling
Police Brutality
Rodney King
Rome - Colliseum, sexual exploitation, torture, and more sanctioned by law
Egypt
Holocaust
Ethnic Cleansing
And too many more to keep going on

But keep drinking the kool aid.

@JY: "um... this is WAY after initial colonization, so that doesn't matter as much. furthermore, i never said slavery was the ONLY reason why the south lost, i'm just making a point that slavery did not help build America to be great. the south's reliance on compelled labor made them less adept at looking for capital intensive solutions to revenue problems."

You know you come off sounding like a slavery apologist or denialist with statements like "slavery did NOT create the American wealth and prosperity."

If you want to bash on slavery, put it squarely on the South, not on America writ large.

"in fact, removing millions of wage earners from a market has BAD effects. that's why the Union..."

Where are your other reasons? You didn't say "it was one of many factors" right here. Don't retcon yourself.

"...in the civil war was at the cutting edge of industry and technology and the south was barely developed, rural and agriculturally based. the institution of slavery hurt our economy"

The institution of slavery was the literal *backbone* of the Southern economy. You could say it hurt *their* economy. To your economic point, there was no "removal millions of wage earners from markets" at all. Those wage earners never existed. Slaves were CAPITAL, not LABOR. There was no contractual basis for the work done.

That's kind of the point for just about everyone running a business. Limit your costs. It also helps if you can pay employees such a little amount that they become interchangeable and not worth thinking about as human beings. You might be surprised to know that many people out there think this way.

Or you might not and just say that "The libertarian position is that any agreement between two consenting adults (naturally obeying the non-aggression principle) is legitimate." The point is that things like minimum wages exist so employers cannot take advantage of employees who treat them like SLAVES.

There are alot of misinformed people in this thread, but I am glad bb has become a republican.

Make America Great Again

^ whens that gonna start

As a NEW Trump loyalist I was wondering what I should be looking forward too. Was curious whether among leaky oil pipelines, giant walls, ripped up treaties or crumbling infrastructure which I should be excited for most. Or if they were all part of the Great-Again slogan

"There's the whole slavery thing, all done by private actors, and the endless discrimination today."

And what about when government actively encouraged it? Jim Crow and DOMA were government acts. And that's not even stepping into local police oppression of certain communities.

"And on taxes, that's not "taxes are theft" it is about regressive v progressive taxation."

So what I hear you saying is that...regressive taxes are...theft.

Im very excited for re-re-distribution of wealth from servicing health insurance to millions - put back into the hands of who really needs help the most - the upper 1%

"Robin Hood was about an individual reclaiming taxes from the government authority. that is LITERALLY the story you complete imbecile"

I laughed so hard.

Robin Hood was about stealing from the crown and giving it to the forgotten man while the aheriff/irs or institutional authority was after him. It's about govt tyranny

Just like atlas shrugged, 1984, animal farm, etc is about out of control govt

No, I am saying regressive taxes are a poor policy choice made by the Democratic polity. Following the will of the democratic majority, provided that's what it is, is merely a commitment to democracy. Society has every right to collectively decide how to allocate resources however. It isn't theft in any event.

In fact theft doesn't exist outside of a social determination that you have property rights. Without social recognition and enforcement, even someone shooting you and taking your stuff isn't theft. So, if you aren't paying for the infrastructure that creates your rights to your money, you're a freeloader unless society has decided not to ask you for contributions for other reasons

And police oppression is done by individuals and not as a matter of public policy. The fact that departments run into legal trouble for that shit shows it is private actions, not government ones

Is oppression justified if its popular?

"And police oppression is done by individuals and not as a matter of public policy."

Would certain police oppress the way they do if they didn't have government-level authority?

All this western terminology is a complete joke. I mean, being Russian, I certainly admit that Western civilisation is superior to ours. But what a strange political configuration: defenders of economic freedom deny freedom of self expression and vice versa. So Trump is right about economics and guns (any Republican would be) and very wrong about all other issues. I believe that in this political model man cannot be pure Rep or Dem. Everyone must consider what rights are in most danger now and then vote accordingly

@JK

i should have been more clear and i apologize for that, but it's fairly clear given the rest of what i was typing i was making a point on economics and slavery, and less focusing on the civil war as a whole. i'll be sure to be more precise next time but as for your other comments:

"The institution of slavery was the literal *backbone* of the Southern economy. You could say it hurt *their* economy. To your economic point, there was no "removal millions of wage earners from markets" at all. Those wage earners never existed. Slaves were CAPITAL, not LABOR. There was no contractual basis for the work done."

well first of all, have you ever heard of the phrase "human capital"? because capital is either human or mechanical. it's a slight differentiation, but it's still important, because machines aren't able to consumer a product.

and i suppose "removal" isn't the right word either, but essentially it's preventing people from entering into the market place, wage or product. the simple fact is that we had seen slave-based systems under Feudalism for YEARS, but nothing really progressed. the reason for this is basic economics, the most competitive and productive producers weren't being selected for, because demand was essentially neutered. thus progress was slow, or didn't come at all. the south's institution was great for a few wealthy individuals, but slowed down overall economic progress. their farming techniques didn't get much better, without outside technologies being brought in. the cotton gin is an example of this, it was developed by Eli Whitney to actually help reduce the number of slaves needed, but because the south had been devoid of technological innovation for years, that one invention actually brought what most historians see as a second wave of industrialization. despite that being in 1793, the south still failed to progress at a fast rate, because the basic competition that is needed to produce innovation was not present in the area.

the south recreated a model of feudalism, and this DID NOT WORK. feudalism made kings rich: yes, but they stunted long run economic growth. this is a fact that even Socialist economists realize: they understand markets, they just would prefer to try to control them.



"That's kind of the point for just about everyone running a business. Limit your costs. It also helps if you can pay employees such a little amount that they become interchangeable and not worth thinking about as human beings. You might be surprised to know that many people out there think this way."

Kuta, you're not listening. you're equating the success of a single plantation, with the overall economic health of the south. these are WILDLY differently things. just because a business is successful does NOT mean the economy is progressing at a healthy rate. i never said slavery wasn't profitable, but news flash, market economics aren't about making a few select individuals wealthy. do you not understand that?



"Or you might not and just say that "The libertarian position is that any agreement between two consenting adults (naturally obeying the non-aggression principle) is legitimate." The point is that things like minimum wages exist so employers cannot take advantage of employees who treat them like SLAVES."

if you're really upset about the industrial/progressive era treatment of workers, then there's a larger list you need to be upset about first:

1. openly corrupt unions, that created a monopoly on labor
2. a deluge of state laws enshrining corporate monopolies
3. the mass amounts of regulation that prevented new businesses from being created

i understand that people got treated horrible back then, and i understand that people are being treated horribly NOW. i actually support a minimum wage (not the Bernie Sanders idiocy, a reasonable one) HOWEVER, it's only a short term fix.

the minimum wage is only necessary because we have a wage market with a surplus of labor, and a shortage of employers. this means the market wages gets driven DOWN.

the solution to this is to increase job growth, best done through allowing competition.


HOWEVER: let's say we create a minimum wage. what will happen:
1. outsourcing will occur
2. to maximize revenue labor will be cut
3. automation will become more fiscally viable and will be invested in over labor

but let's say you are at maximum current potential automation, revenue is on a linear curve, AND all other countries have perfectly matching factor endowments.

IF ALL OF THAT IS TRUE: the minimum wage will have the desired affect of cutting profit margins, and increasing employee earnings.

however, even with this successful policy, the long terms effects are as follows:
1. investors pull out of labor intensive markets when profits are lowered: if you're getting an 8% profit margin from an activity, but min. wage cuts that margin to 5%, you're going to look for a more profitable activity.

2. hiring freezes and lay offs become a LOT more frequent, when employers don't have a profit buffer. if there's a drop in market shares, they could react rashly to what is actually a short term problem. low profits means more volatility in decision making.


there are more problems, but this is WITH the first three conditions of no outsourcing and no more possible automation and a linear revenue curve being met. those three alone occur quite frequently.

this is not to say a minimum isn't necessary, but giant spikes in the minimum wage almost always hurt industries, that employ the most people. this is why we see the highest income inequality and unemployment rates in cities with the highest minimum wages.

the minimum wage should have always been a short term solution, but we still haven't allowed for businesses to flourish, meaning the labor force consistently outmatches the demand for labor at any given time.

the fact that employers like to treat employees badly is because of the uncompetitive industries they reigned over. sadly, socialists like Sanders don't understand economics and if they get their way with a 15$ min. wage, things will only get worse

https://www.dol.gov/whd/industry.htm

here's some work and wage laws, per industry. a flat 15$ federal wage across every state would cause a catastrophe: sorry if i'm not too happy with democrat politics at the moment

i don't like addressing symptoms of the problem forever, we need a market based solution, that will help everyone in the long run. otherwise corporatism and corruption are going to continue to run rampant in the US