Topic: Bitcoin Welfare System (Read 5300 times)

That's the problem. If you want, and if you like my character. I think the constitution gives anyone the right to participate in the society, for least to some degree

Sounds good to me, even though it doesn't take into effect the assurance social net or the huge abundance of resources we'd have if the govs of the world weren't stealing it from us so much already.

Most everyone already wants to be or is charitable in some way, even & especially the poor who can't afford it now. Almost all soup kitchens are run by people who were homeless themselves and now work a J.O.B. to help out their friends. Take away that societal structure that government imposes on us and there would be such an abundance of wealth aimed at solving charitable problems that people in that society would have a hearty laugh at us having this conversation.

Back to the topic though; yes, like you pointed out there are market reasons for solutions to pop up, but I think those would be 3rd down on the totem pole in practice. Assurance coverage will be extended charitably to anyone who (isn't a murder) & asks for it in such a prosperous society.
 

Absolutely, those are two huge blindspots for statists, and I would surmise that the propaganda machines we call 'schools' may have had something to do with their existence.



That's barely a drop in the bucket though! What's a few companies donating millions compared to the whole world having all of their tax money freed to donate as they please? In the US most people are paying 60%-70% of their wealth (not just income) annually in some form of tax. In France there are people paying 110%! Communist China doesn't steal that much wealth from its' people... It's just inconceivable how much wealth is taken from us as a whole.

If the average person on this planet pays $10,000 in taxes each year, (yes, number pulled out of my ass) then 7 billion ppl times 10k is clearly in the 10's of Quadrillions of dollars worth of freed-up cash that people can use for anything that they see fit... And historically people have paid quite a lot into charity, despite the government stealing all of that cash up front. 5%-10% per person certainly would not be unfathomable. I could see large segments of the population choosing to give up 50% of their income (that the government stole previously) to go directly to people who can't afford assurance.

That would be many billions, if not trillions of dollars worldwide. Surely if the government was gone, the wars were over, the schools could compete on the free market, and the welfare state was removed, along with its' creation of entitled people, then a few TRILLION dollars worth of non-bureaucratic charity could bridge the gap.

yes further evidence that is quite good at reinforcing my existing suspicion but not nearly as effective at changing the opinion of someone who suspects the opposite.

Don't forget, companies and corporations, especially big ones (and even "evil" ones like WalMart) donate millions to charities every year, even if they are not required to, and even if it goes against their corporate requirement to maximize profit (where charitable giving lowers it instead). It's also a good way to get good publicity, "manage your brand,"and get "free" advertising in newspapers.

yes it certainly doesn't necessarily follow from "retards are starving and dieing in the streets of starvation" to "therefor we ought to initiate violence on their behalf." even if that does follow it further doesn't necessarily follow that if "we ought to initiate violence on their behalf" that "the state is the best means for using enabling this transfer".

These are two very big leaps that are so often glossed over and taken for granted. i personally feel that maybe the first leap is justifiable (think robin hood), but the second is almost certainly not.

also i agree that people would probably be charitable enough, and i agree that even if they wernt that doesn't necessarily justify the state. But i would really just like some hard data. i know americans donate ~300 billion to charity every year. i wonder if there is a way to calculate the ~ cost of these services.

Yep, agreed that it would probably work just like that... I think also if the current "democratic" system is to be thought of as in any way shape or form valid, then we must assume that generally people are a charitable lot, if they are, then voluntary society works... if they aren't, only a small portion of people will be charitable... maybe not enough to solve the problems... But if people are inherently selfish then government is just a really good way for bad people to gain control over the minority of good charitable people and won't help much because, sociopaths by nature crave power over others and good people don't.

ancient ireland empirical evidence that this system can work. its pretty clear that this would be ideal if we can assume that society would be charitable enough to provide basic needs (food, shelter, water, clothing, assurance and insurance) to the legitimately unfortunate. i dont think anyone who's being honest can really contest that fact.

so really we are only left with one question which leaves open the one potential legitimate criticism. Would people be charitable enough to meet those requirements? if people would not be charitable enough to meet those basic needs than perceptive critics would still have a really good point. it would be really sad to see mental retards starving in the street because they are legitimately unable to generate enough value on the market to support themselves and that would be a HUGE strike against the desirability of this system.

i think the solution to this conundrum might be to consider that, if placed in a situation where someone has to chose to commit aggression or starve to death than they will commit aggression every time. the fact that you can predict this with 100% certainty means that there would be an economic incentive to make sure that people arnt hungry, since protecting your food against such a determined thief would almost certainly cost more than feeding him some gruel. the way this transfer mechanism might work is that insurance companies who insured people against theft of food might find that it was cheaper to provide a network of soup kitchens than a physical security apparatus capable of effectively enforcing the property rights of food owners. copy and paste to apply this argument to basic needs other than food.

anyway tell me what you think of my assessment luke.

Well said!

wow thats really cool.


i really am not sure. it may boil down to a semantic debate. obviously a mugging is an initiation of violence but with shoplifting it isnt so clear. either way trying to fit everything into neat little linguistic boxes i think only serves to obfuscate the point. a rose by any other name is still a rose. i think we should just focus on how we feel about the morality of the action its self within the relevant context and not what labels ought to be applied to it.


again its semantics. according to the definition that google gives for the word enforcement the answer is yes. but then we have this question of what word to use for situations where the redaction of benefits rather than the violation of rights are used to persuade someone to follow a rule. it seems to me the best way to describe this would be "non violent enforcement" but then according to googles definition non violent enforcement is a paradox. the important point to take away though i think is the idea that a person can be persuaded to comply with a rule with out threatening to commit violence against him should he fail to comply.

Michael Huemer is genius (and a close friend of my family for decades, shared many meals together).

Was the violence initiated by the theft of food?
Is law enforcement necessarily violence?

I think the limiting mechanism will depend a lot on the causes. Right now in my country there are several reasons to reproduce - you get paid for it if you're already poor, it's a status symbol if you're rich, and it might just be an accident.

* Privately-funded soup kitchens wouldn't create financial incentives like welfare-per-child does.
* Rich people reproducing isn't a huge problem because they can support these children.
* Accidental pregnancy can be reduced with easier contraception and abortion. For example, bitcoin drug markets could sell emergency contraception and abortion pills even within oppressive countries.

However, here in the USA we don't really have an overpopulation problem; if you don't count immigration the population is shrinking. It's reasonable to assume that developing countries will eventually reach this point too, and population growth will slow to the rate of economic growth (or less).

i dont think that it is the initiation of violence but i dont think that all violations of the nap are immoral and i dont think that all things that are immoral are violations of the nap. trying to categorize all actions into these neat little boxes can lead to some very weird conclusions.

check out this video by michael huemer for an explanation of the problems/limitations of uncompromising adherence to the non aggression principal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmCn2vP-DEo

the simple fact of the matter is that its just my opinion that the store owner would be doing something that ought to be unpermissable. if you have a different opinion than i welcome that. only if enough people have the same opinion as me will it be enshrined in law.

with that being said i dont think you need to initiate violence inorder incentivize someone to not commit an action that you feel is immoral but is not its self an initiation of violence.

social cooperation bestows upon us MANY MANY benefits while at the same time no one has any obligation to cooperate with us. redacting the offer to cooperate is not an act of aggression. this gives society tremendous leverage with which to curtail aberrant behavior with out initiating violence. the best way to apply this pressure with out needing everyone in the world to track and understand every injustice so they can personally boycott every bad actor is to outsource this job to the legal system. this is exactly how society was governed in ancient anarchic ireland. At that point it isnt up to us to decide every case on a case by case basis but just up to us to decide what we consider to be aberrant behavior and direct our resources devoted to rights enforcement towards organizations that reflect our sentiments. i think a grocer allowing a starving man to die in his parking lot counts as aberrant behavior, but again that's just my opinion.

So it sounds like this is solution is actually a subset of the larger issue of removing state initiated violence from society. Whilst many people have issues with these schemes I personally have some sympathy for them. So we will let them stand for now.

So then it comes down to whether denying someone food which they haven't paid for is initiation of violence. Because if it is not, then any punishment worth mentioning becomes the initiation of violence which is against the non-aggression principle.

The only truly fair way this expectation could be enforced would be for people to refuse to shop at stores which would not participate in it. At which point, the question is, why aren't those people feeding the poor themselves.

A bigger question is how you limit the population when you remove limits on the population. Personally, I'm not in favor of artificially enforced limits on the population (against the non-aggression principle and I think people are generally an asset) but I also don't leave uneaten food and scraps pile up in my kitchen (if you see what I'm saying).

Just put two homeless people in a ring and throw in a can of soup and an opener.

(Just kidding too)

http://splicer.com/2011/07/18/wino

Come on, back off a bit. It is, I believe, possible to agree in general principle and disagree on specific issues. I used to go to county fairs and other public gatherings in the hot sun to hand out Nolan charts for my local Libertarian Party and talk to people about the talking points. And what we always said was, if you're on the left half, you're liberal. If you're on the right half, you're conservative. If you're on the top half, congratulations, you're a libertarian. And of course, the bottom half of the diamond is authoritarian.

I still describe myself as libertarian from time to time. I've voted in seven presidential elections, and voted for the LP candidate four of those times. I read Reason magazine and I'm in favor of scrapping the vast majority of the IRS in favor of the FairTax. To the vast majority of America (perhaps the world) I am an extremist wingnut. Yet I get called Libertarian In Name Only most times I have conversations with other libertarians because I support taxpayer-funded education like Thomas Jefferson did. And I believe in federalism; I'm much more liberal (in the modern sense) when it comes to local decisions than I am regarding the State and much more willing to consider spending at the state level than I am the Federal Government. So that argument about pointing a gun at my neighbor to pay for the local library always comes up and I'm judged a very unlibertarian libertarian.

First, I don't buy it. Reasonable people can disagree about what parts of the multiple governments we live under ought to be dismantled, and believing in keeping one of them ought not be cause for alienating someone who is fundamentally an ally.

Second, it's the wrong conversation to have. Should we do away with welfare programs? Well, maybe. I'll even say probably. Should we do away with them immediately and suddenly? I don't think so. Do we have threats to liberty that loom more menacingly? Oh yeah. Picking winners and losers and creating moral hazard on the individual level is damaging, but it does help some people, too. Picking winners and losers to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare could be done away with like tearing off a band-aid. No one would notice the difference except the people who are becoming billionaires on the public teat. Never mind the surveillance states we now live in with militarized police. There is a matter of priority here.

So while I saw the bit about "libertarian" and "welfare" in the same sentence and did a double-take too, I'd like to take that poster's word for it that she or he is a libertarian.

Laws in my ideal society would be made by judges operating on the free market. They would understand economics and incentives problems. Societies are FULL of thousands upon thousands of subtle and complex problems that judges have been wrestling with for centuries, thats why we have an entire academic field of law that is every bit as intricate and complex as electronics or neuro-science. im talking about commonlaw here, judge made law aimed at dispute resolution, not statutory law which i would see done away with entirely. we already have legal precedent for how to handle situations where soup kitchens make people sick and that doesn't stop soup kitchens from existing in a legal framework where there isnt even any legal pressure for them to be provided.
thats simple enough, the kitchen gives one serving per person
than they will meet in court and the judges will attempt to resolve the dispute in the most economically efficient way. in this case the judges would recognize the incentive problem this would create and would almost certainly rule in favor of the grocers.

There are too many ways to game your setup. I mean, does every vendor who sells groceries have to have gruel available? Who is responsible if the homeless person eats the gruel and gets sick? What if homeless people find some other use for your gruel and resell it on the street, as, say fertilizer? What if they get together, along with non-homeless supporters, start protesting gruel as inhumane, and try to force laws that make the shop owner have to give up actual valuable groceries?

what do you think of my idea rassah? stefan moleneaux and other denotological libertarians would no doubt find it abhorrent. as far as free market anarchists are concerned im something of a left wing apologist I agree with lefitists when they say that sometimes rights ought to be violated for the greater good, i just dont think thats at all a good argument in favor of the state or against markets in general.

the whole point of the soup kitchen is to limit legal liability, if "Denatonium" causes cancer or something you would almost certainly find yourself facing some sort of class action lawsuit which would sort of defeat the purpose.