Vengeance Libertarianism

[Tim May]

On Dec 31, 2003, at 8:21 AM, Freematt357 at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 12/31/2003 4:44:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> jya at pipeline.com writes:
>
>> Nowhere in Tim's spew is the recognition that the largest
>> beneficiaries of government favoritism are corporations and
>> wealthy individuals like himself
>
>
> Government favoritism? It sounds like you don't believe a raising tide 
> lifts
> all ships. Tim is entitled to keep the wealth he has earned, when it's 
> taken
> its called stealing.

I prefer NOT to use language like "a raising tide lifts all ships," as 
it essentially endorses the pragmatist view supporting capitalism.

Rather, I favor the fundamentalist view that if Alice and Bob make a 
transaction, be it a trade of goods or labor or whatever, it is not 
right/wise/proper/constitutional to take some fraction of the alleged 
profit to give to someone else. It is "redistribution" that I am mostly 
arguing against, for multiple reasons. (Including the corrosive effects 
of teaching a growing fraction of the population that they are 
"entitled" to things.)

I don't claim this is a "right" implicit in the fabric of space-time, 
or handed down by Moloch or YHWH or some other supernatural 
myth-figure. Rather, societies which have taken money from workers to 
give to others to sit at home and breed or eat Doritos while watching 
Oprah have failed.

Jamestown was a recent example, with the initial settlers adopting the 
usual "from each according to his ability, to each according to his 
need" arrangement. It failed miserably, as various settlers found good 
reasons--exhaustion, the hot sun, to much to drink the night before, 
sex, or just laziness--to not show up for work parties. This meant 
those working had to work even harder. A vicious circle, much like the 
one now facing American industry, where more and more workers are 
claiming bogus "disability" and where the insurance costs are driving 
companies out of the country. And where some ethnic communities treat 
those who work and study as "suckas," as "Oreos."

Jamestown's solution was a harsh one: "no work, no eat."

This sounds harsh ("what about cripples?"), but it's basically the only 
stable attractor, in a Schelling point sense, that exists, along with 
the other attractor, where a growing percentage are not working, on 
disability, on unemployment, etc. and the remaining workers are 
carrying a heavier and heavier burden.

This Schelling point analysis applies to a lot of our so-called 
"rights," as with religious expression (where the non-coercion 
principle is that neighbors will come to a "territorial boundary" 
arrangement not to interfere with the religious views of each other, as 
dogs might reach a territorial boundary arrangment with other dogs.

So the issue is not "a rising tide lifts all ships" as the defense of 
capitalism, the issue is one of stable attractors.

That this lifts all ships is because, as Jamestown learned, having 
nearly all able-bodied people working to grow crops and make things and 
trade is, for nearly all involved, better than having 30% of the 
workforce slaving away in the hot sun so that 70% can find excuses not 
to be working.

That is not a stable attractor. "They pretend to pay us and we pretend 
to work."

People like Tyler Durden, James Donald, and John Young are using the 
tired old cliches about how it is "society that paid for business" and 
hence "society" has some right to take a cut of each transaction 
between Alice and Bob.


>
>> The rich fear the poor, and rightly so, for they know who pays
>> for their perks.
>
> What commie nonsense.
>

A lot of collectivists here on the Cypherpunks list.

Chortle. For them to think that strong crypto means more freebies and 
entitlements for "the poor" is hilarious to see.

--Tim May