What's a politics question you've always wanted to ask Cribb but haven't [...]?

[Daemon]

wow

Does this post have the most likes to letters ratio in cw history?

In b4 someone posts no and they get 10

[Prince EWS]

I came in to leave this

Liberland: hundreds of thousands apply to live in world's newest 'country' | World news | The Guardian

Well good luck, something tells me we won't hear so much from the project in a couple of years

I haven't looked into it yet but a bunch of people on the Australian Libertarian Society and UK Libertarian Discussion Facebook pages are insistent that it'll be in no way any sort of libertarian nation, so I'm holding off getting excited until I've read their complaints properly and done some research. Hopefully it doesn't just become our Marxism-Leninism.

[Prince EWS]

I'm still quite sure this is inconsistent. In your system the state is the one apparatus you can't use to maximise your own subjective value. Why not? Because at its heart it relies on the use of force, and so would allow people to deprive others of some fundamental freedom. But we all would agree with that argument when it came to, say, torturing someone for the amusement of the majority. So the question becomes: which freedoms are fundamental? And you differ from the rest of us because you think that far more freedoms are fundamental than the rest of us do, particularly those concerning property. It's purely an appeal to natural rights- not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's what it is.

I am essentially making an anti-force argument, but an anti-force argument doesn't have to be rooted in deontology. I'm not saying "force should be minimised because it violates natural rights"; I'm using a much more consquentialist argument and saying "force should be minimised because, recognising that value is subjective, this will result in more people being able to live by their own system of values." There's little better recognition of subjective value than allowing people to set their own rules to their own property.

This is essentially what allows me to believe in some 'positive rights' freedom in some circumstances and some wealth redistribution where natural rights libertarians do not; sometimes subjective value is better recognised by making sure people have the means to social mobility.

[Spark]

I'm pretty sure I've talked to you about this before but there's something about subjective value which is ill-defined for me.

[Prince EWS]

I'm pretty sure I've talked to you about this before but there's something about subjective value which is ill-defined for me.

It was originally a purely economic theory put forward by Carl Menger to explain price mechanisms. It grew from that point in some circles (mainly followers of Hayek) to be an all-encompassing theory of all valuations, even those which were not actually related to trade.

Where I think some people get lost in it is in thinking it can effectively eat itself by creating paradoxes. So they ask things like.. "If all value is subjective, isn't freedom subjective? Isn't the value of the theory of subjective value also then subjective?" In a way the answer to these questions is yes, but the point of maximising freedom from a subjective value standpoint is not to put forward freedom as an objective good like natural rights libertarians would, but to create the best possible framework for the recognition and application of subjective value. It's not true that one could dismiss something like tyranny or oppression with "oh well, can't use force to prevent that because value is subjective", because the oppression creates a system of pseudo-objective value as decided by the oppressor. For subjective value to have meaning as a concept, people must be free to apply their version of it and have the means to. These conditions can compete with each other at their cores, which is why they must be balanced, and this leads itself quite well into the Hayekian classical liberal pursuits of freedom from forceful intervention and equality of opportunity.

[Furball]

Cribb, how do you marry up your bizarre outlook on healthcare and economics with the fact that US healthcare costs far more ler patient than the NHS for worse health outcomes?

[Prince EWS]

Cribb, how do you marry up your bizarre outlook on healthcare and economics with the fact that US healthcare costs far more ler patient than the NHS for worse health outcomes?

By recognising that the US heathcare system is also terrible. It'd be a mistake to assume that the US healthcare system is somehow representative of the free market given not only the ridiculous amount of regulations they place on the industry, but the amount of money the state actually spends on it (even before Obamacare). I read a really good article about this a year or so ago; I'll try to dig it up.

EDIT: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...system/254210/

[Spark]

IIRC the American healthcare system has been described as "universal, but the worst possible kind" (pre-Obamacare, that is, which is basically a vague copy of the Swiss model)

[Dan]

@Cribb
So basically you're arguing that everything is inherently subjective/socially-constructed, but your ideology is the least subjective/socially-constructed; the least of all tyrannical evils, effectively?

[NZTailender]

so will the public engage the construction companies? like should i rely on me neighbour neil to give em a call or should i do it?

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I've seen enough privately owned roads which turn to pothole ridden death traps, just because one householder on the road thinks "it's fine as it is" to wonder whether that is a sensible idea.

[harsh.ag]

Cribb, what are your thoughts on "In the absence of force used by government, there could/would be greater force used by citizens/corporations against each other"?

[Prince EWS]

Cribb, what are your thoughts on "In the absence of force used by government, there could/would be greater force used by citizens/corporations against each other"?

I think this is true to a certain point, which is why I'm a small government advocate and not an anarcho-capitalist. I certainly think that, for the most basic example, private property rights are better protected through having taxation fund a police force and a courts system to prevent theft.This is a case of a small amount of state force being justified because it'd prevent an even greater degree of private force.

[Spikey]

Prince EWS: "Man, **** the police". True/False?

[harsh.ag]

I think this is true to a certain point, which is why I'm a small government advocate and not an anarcho-capitalist. I certainly think that, for the most basic example, private property rights are better protected through having taxation fund a police force and a courts system to prevent theft.This is a case of a small amount of state force being justified because it'd prevent an even greater degree of private force.

Yeah, get that. I was trying to ask whether you think even the cost of reducing governments drastically from their present size would lead to a greater degree of rise in private force than we may be comfortable with?