On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:
On Thu, Dec 04, 1997 at 05:22:23PM -0700, Jim Burnes wrote: [...]
And Singapore survives quite well being a totalitarian capitalist society. Sure, you can pick nits and claim that Singapore's not entirely capitalist, but it's more capitalist than this country and certainly less free, too.
hmmm.. no one says that singapore doesn't work anyomore than that they say that a team of horses under a whip doesn't work. the difference is that in singapore the policeman is inside.
Nope. I have several friends who are from Singapore, and that is simply not the way they see it. They like their country, and they are proud of it. They know it isn't perfect, but they think it is pretty damn good. From their perspective your statement simply reflects the narrowness of your point of view.
Nice try, Kent. This is to be expected by people who have the internal policeman. This is like a kitchen slave that says they like their kitchen. From a kitchen slave's point of view a wandering minstrel that doesn't eat as often or as well may not be as well off. That just means the kitchen slave is fatter not more free. Just wait until they try and leave the plantation. Indeed this is pretty much the viewpoint of every person in every country unless the authoritarians have really clamped down. My country good or bad with exceptions.
[...]
there is a fundamental flaw your case. economic freedom is really the same as social freedom.
This also represents a terribly narrow view of the world. Freedom is psychological state as much as it is a social or an economic one.
Only from someone who doesn't understand the basics of economics. I am differentiating between freedom and hapiness. I start from the premise, "as it harms no one, do as you please". How many nation states allow this? Freedom is the opposite of slavery. I don't want happiness. I don't want the nanny state. I want freedom. It is a real state, Kent. I want to do everything I'm personally capable of short of harming others...and that better be real and tangible harm. Lets think about this, Kent. I am showing you that it has real, tangible properties -- not some myth or religious belief. Take an example citizen unit "Sally". Sally want's to contract with a company to provide programming services. She doesn't want social security. She justs wants all the money she contracted for. Nothing more, nothing less. The amount she contracted for has real tangible benefits. Food she can buy, free time, better clothes, better education for her kids etc.... Mr Big Brother steps in and takes a big chunk of it without her permission. This decreases the net number of hours left in Sallys life. She must work longer hours now. If Sally is not the person who decides how the hours in her life should be spent she doesn't even own her own life. Who owns it? I'll give you one guess. I'll give you the fact that Sally is permitted (at least in most Nation States) to become a hermit and own herself again. But remember we're talking about the freedom of a society. I'll also give you the fact that she is limited by other things like environmental factors, acts of god, her own emotional decisions to support her parents or something. These are all voluntary decisions.
In either case, the act of buying and selling things is the ultimate expression of free association/assembly.
Nonsense. The ultimate expression of freedom is skinny dipping in a mountain lake.
I'm sorry Kent, but that is a NOP. Go back to the hermit argument. Besides, who now is talking about feelings.
I might mention, since this is the cypherpunk list, that crypto is *exactly* what big brother is afraid of because we might realize what *kind* of slaves we are and what kind of masters they are. Incidentally it might actually free us from this prison some day. The first step to escaping from your jail cell is understanding that you live in a jail cell and what kind of cell that is. Most new citizens units have a room reserved from birth. (slave: birth to grave)
Freedom to make purchasing decisions is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society. It is the medium by which we interact with society at large. Red Hat software doesn't know who the hell I am and they probably can't afford to care that much. What they do know is that if they configure a really decent version of Linux that I will give them $50. It allows me to do my thing and it puts food on their table.
Economic freedom is what makes it possible for society to evolve into to something better. Lack of it eventually dooms the inhabitants to decide whether to become a hammer or an anvil -- a host or a parasite.
If you don't think that the population is prevented from making purchasing decisions then you better get the sleep out of your eyes and take a good, hard look.
</pedagogy>
Actually, it's dogma, not pedagogy. The notion of "freedom" to a libertarian is like the notion of "faith" to a Christian -- a self-reinforcing mental trap, a span of circular thinking that is just a little too large for them to notice and say "Haven't I been here before?"
Allright, Kent. Lets play a little thought experiment. Sometimes its helpful to remove extraneous bullshit from an argument. Lets start with the most obvious cases of non-freedom and work outwards. (1) You are dead (2) You have been kidnapped, bound by duct tape into a chair - hand, foot and mouth. (3) You are a physical slave. Being unlucky enough to be born into a slave society or captured during warfare you grow up a slave. Your life is at the disposal of your owner. You are probably well aware of your condition, but have not the resources do alleviate it. ..tell me when to stop, Kent.... (4) You are a psychological slave. Having let someone else make your decisions for you, your mental and physical faculties are at the the disposal of the meme controllers. (5) You are an economic slave. Having the misfortune of your wealth being tied to the fiat of a nation-state, the value of your time and the stability of your day-to-day world are at the disposal of those who worship power. Each of these forms of servitude requires more and more information to detect. Many citizen units, like fish in a fishbowl, endlessly swim in circles, happy and content -- never seeing the fishbowl until they bump straight into it. The usual reaction is to say, "hmmm...thats strange" and then they go on swimming in circles again. Eventually the housecat comes by and eats the fish next to them. This is scary for the fish, but bound by the limitations of the fishbowl will simply assimilate it and chalk it up to an act of god.
Like moths they flit around the bright emotional icons that blind them, define their world, and trap their thoughts in endless repetition.
Very pretty, Kent. You get an 'A' for prose, but an 'D' for reasoning. OK...I'm flitting about those bright emotional icons. Feeling pretty good. I don't like slavery, Kent. Why? I don't know. I'll admit it. Is it rational? I don't know. I am a human being with my own will. I don't like slavery and submission any more than I like a hot poker in the eye. If I am bothered by it and continue returning to contemplate it, please forgive me. Maybe that makes me human. I prefer to voluntarily serve my fellow citizens. If you prefer to serve in the kitchen, no matter how well stocked or lavish, then I pity you. Did this stuff bother me before I saw it? No. Did it affect me? Most definitely. But I've always had an extreme dislike for bullys. Maybe thats another emotional icon, Kent.
For all the brave words about reason and logic, and all the endless discussion about it, libertarians don't ever actually sit down and think "what does the word 'freedom' mean, anyway?".
OK. I think we took care of that. Freedom doesn't mean external factors. Freedom means living in an environment and having the ability to alter or manipulate that enviornment and expand beyond the environment. Obviously the jail cell is only free until you get to the bars or wish to be free from them. Maybe were getting somewhere here.... Freedom is relative to your desires much as wealth is. (desired actions - external-human-imposed-limitations) = slavery (desired wealth - actual wealth) = poverty If you are a totally integrated Zen monks who has achieved enlightenment maybe you could be very happy in a jail cell. If you play video games all day and eat pizza all night you are free. If you discover the limitation that have been imposed on you and think they are nonsensical, artificial and human imposed then you are a slave...unless you don't care to explore beyond those limitations. What kind of human do I want to be? I don't want to escape into the internal. I don't want to permanantly bury myself in hedonistic pleasure (but the thought has occurred to me) I don't wan't to immerse myself in 9-5 wage slavery. I wan't to explore the internal and the external. I wan't to become more than I am. I realize these things are available in this world. Its just that I don't want to subject myself to the psychological subjugation that it takes. Read that "kissing up". I've almost reached the point where individual effort can max out without massive kissing up. Perhaps that's my own self-imposed prison, but I'd prefer to advance by serving others in the free market. But don't worry, I'm still trying.
Instead, their thinking goes down to a point where they can repeat some mantra like "Freedom to make purchasing decisions is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society", and they never realize the exact circularity involved.
Maybe you could explain it. I base my beliefs on the fact that any civilization beyond a few thousand people must interact via some type of money, or stagnate. If you don't understand mutual coincidence of wants, I could explain it to you. The society is then defined by the dynamics of that currency because it defines the nature of free association beyond the boundaries of the merely personal (ie: families, friends, jumping in mountain lakes). Who or what guarantees the integrity of that money(s) defines the nature of the civilization. Whether it grows or contracts, whether the people save their hard-earned cash or spend it, the nature of level of debt, waste, etc. Notice I'm not suggesting we all return to gold. But the above observations still hold. Who or what guarantees the moeny? Does the president guarantee it, the banks individually, the banks severally, the central bank, the head of the central bank, or emergent market forces? And people who believe that money is root of all evil are simply falling prey to psychological slavery. That meme must have been invented by people threatened by freedom. Money simply allows you the freedom to interact with the society at large. It allows you to do anything you would normally do - good or evil. It might as well be "Freedom to worship the
Lord is *the* major component of freedom in any advanced society." Or "Being a slave to purchasing decisions is *the* major component of slavery in any advanced society." Thinking in platitudes is not thinking.
Well I suppose you could argue this, but its provably wrong. Proof by counterexample: There are places where you are free to worship the lord, the devil, the trees or the cracks in the sidewalk if you like. Without economic freedom, the freedom to sell or not to sell, to purchase or not to purchase we'd be living in little mud shacks without many of the modern advances of civilization. Money enables large sectors of the populace to interact without barter. These large sectors then specialize and the results of this specialization and advancement are the history of science. Personally I like those advances. Other than that I will agree to disagree with you, Kent. Have a better one, jim