Taibbi and Michael Moore know the patients sick and can recognize all the symptoms they just can’t diagnose the cause of the illness.

Capitalism is what results or would result when and if force is removed from human-relations. Unfortunately, the name hardly conveys the benevolent circumstances that bring it about. The word capitalism was popularized by Carl Marx. http://adamsmithslostlegacy.com/2007/02/origins-of-word-capitalism-thackeray.html That alone is good reason for preferring another word or term to describe what we Austrians mean when we use it. Laissez-faire without capitalism appended to it was and is decidedly more suitable. Or maybe it should just be called freedom.

Corporations are legal fictions created by statist laws. Their mere existence violates human freedom, for the state-granted privilege of limited liability, which is the elemental purpose of the corporate form of doing business, is a government benefit granted to only some people (viz., the stockholders), and provided by the state through the FORCE of its laws. In addition to this problem, the act of seeking to obtain the state’s corporate charter or license automatically involves business owners in the business of politics, and demands of them a degree of subservience to the political state that is not in keeping with human dignity and freedom. Some argue that there is no special advantage incumbent in incorporating because “anyone can do it.” However, not everyone is willing to go (hat-in-hand and humbly) before their public servants to obtain permission to do anything, since that is not in keeping with freedom. The definition of a license is permission to do something that would otherwise be illegal. Where there are corporations there will be corporatism and the abridgment of freedom.

“I make no distinction between what is called the state and large corporations”

Let me help you, Ackerman:

The Federal Government and, say, Walmart.

Walmart is the one that will not be getting in touch with you if you ignore them both next April 15th.

That was as far as I read. Thank you, as always, for saving time by completely discrediting yourself at the beginnings of your posts.

Joseph,

Is *that* (partly) what Ackerman was on about?!? Leave it to an inveterate government lover to find the real villains at Auschwitz (or whichever camps)! Oh, if only Nazi Germany had more regulations, that would have kept IBM at bay.

mpozkill – hearing what you want to hear, knowing only what you heard.

Yes, Ackerman, a good description of how you must have come to make your ridiculous statement: “I make no distinction between what is called the state and large corporations” And a good description of how it came to be that you should hilariously focus on IBM at Auschwitz.

Oh, you’re talking about me? Well that works too: I heard foolishness, I knew it to be foolishness. Why can’t you be this clear, correct and succinct all the time?

mposkill – you are fountain of bad information, and it comes from spewing comments on things you have absolutely no knowledge of.

You admitted you didn’t read past my first statement, and then go on to claim I focused on something that I gave one sentence to.

Your attempts to polarize me as a lover of the state just make you look intellectually bankrupt when contrasted to what I actually write. I don’t really care; I’m just pointing out as a favor. you might want to actually read the things you criticize. It helps everyone.

Here, let me show you a format that can lend you credibility:

“Ackermann, here is why I think your comment on (some comment) is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard: (some information-bearing rebuttal supplied by you).

This is why I can’t stress enough that people should finish school. I have to sit here and explain the difference between information and sloganeering.

So long as the government maintains any significant influence on the market, it is nearly impossible to separate failure of government from failure of markets. When something goes wrong, whoever is responsible seems to depend only on what the onlookers believed beforehand, and not on the actual circumstances of the event (“I’m not going to delve into the ins and outs of Goldman Sachs”).

This is primarily the case because doing the leg-work is hard and even those who ostensibly have a keen interest in the truth flub it up by dismissing contrary data or using fallacious reasoning to make it support a preconceived conclusion.

My two cents on the matter is that in this case both sides are speaking sloppily but ultimately agreeing. The government is inept and corrupt in equal measure, but made so (primarily, if not entirely) due to the fact that its actions are controlled by market forces more than by political forces. In other words, the government is broken because the market got into policy, and when that happens, someone ends up buying legislation and, ultimately, the market.

It’s a bit like forgetting to carry an umbrella on a rainy day. You were the one who forgot, but it was the rain that got you wet.

Even free market proponents forbid legislative power to be delegated to the free market. In a sense, though, it is inevitable. Corruption happens, and it resists reform. Roll the dice enough times, and you’ll get a perfect storm of corruption, as we have now, at some point. The only way to not have corruption in government is to embrace anarchy.

Economic poverty due to rampant corruption is inevitable in every system. It’s only a question of how long it takes to get to that point. Prolonging it requires government officials to be insulated from corrupting influences as much as possible.

The ideology of the free market demands opposition to the corrupting influence of market actors attempting to buy the market as well as opposition to fruitless over-expansion of government, yet it is often only those acting in the government’s name are lambasted, while the corporations that pull the strings behind the scenes are left unscathed (at Mises at least).

As they say, it takes two to tango.

The first comment hits the nail on the head. People see the symptoms but can’t figure out the cause. Look at the New Deal.

Eight years of ungodly spending, regulation and government cartels which just sunk us deeper and deeper into the depression.

We get involved in WW2 and our economy is allowed to function freely (out of necessity) and we suddenly come out of the depression. Yet today many people believe it was because of all that random government spending and regulating.

Barry O even said he thought this debate was long over. You wish, ‘Bama. You wish.

In an attempt to demystify the word corporation, it comes from the Latin word ‘corpus’ as in corpse. It simply means body or entity.

To Talionis’ other point about telling like it is, it takes integrity to tell your child they can’t have everything they want. They may not like you for it, but it must be done. People don’t like it when the government says they can’t all own homes and we can’t set the price of petroleum.

That’s why the words Politician and Integrity are rarely used in the same sentence.

Corruption will happen and it needs to be dealt with.

Milton Friedman said that the free market fails when a transaction between two parties affects a 3rd party. Addressing those problems are the root of most regulations.

Regulations will not always be followed, but when the knowledge that a regulation was not followed come to light, and nothing is done about it, it is almost as damaging as the original infraction.

It is not true that the market will always correct wrongdoings. In fact, the market can promote it. If a company was allowed to market cigarettes to children with the promise that smoking them would bring luck to their family, and it was okay to steal money from their parents to buy some, the market would not provide a mechanism to stop that. The only thing it would provide is optimal pricing and vigorous competition.

The government didn’t direct the ratings agencies to commit fraud. The government’s failure is now not doing anything about it.

There are now 35,000 lobbyists directing government to grow, not become smaller. They micromanage all phases of legislation, and they direct political campaigns. They are hired by corporations who want to feed from the trough, or change the landscape in which they operate. It matters not one lick that the changes they seek affect a 3rd party.

Jamie Dimon knows what a great investment purchasing government is. He has promised to greatly increase JPMC’s efforts in Washington DC. The message is loud and clear: if you have the money, dump it in Washington to create your own arbitrage opportunities. The government is just a hunk of meat that all the tics and leeches feast on, and it relies on you and me for more blood.

You want smaller government? Start by eliminating influence in Washington. It simply will not happen until that is done. There is no way around that fact.

Again, let us not misdiagnose the problem. The unholy alliance between (fill in the blank) and State.

The Separation of Labor and State is just as important because unions are able to sway elections. (and destroy market dynamics)

Ford vehicles were used by the Wehrmacht, as well.

International trade is a bitch, isn’t it? Especially when states (they’re what make it international in the first place) get involved, what with their wars, and such.

It would almost seem that producers supply consumers with the means to pursue their ends, no matter WHAT those are, or WHO the consumers are.

SHAME on producers! SUE the bastards, for all they’re worth (if you’re on the winning side).

This idiot (a true, thorough idiot: one who has some specialized knowledge and takes that for “Education”) has now reminded me of Donald Livingston’s description of the only kind of government that is sensible and won’t directly lead to disaster; and I’m printing this huge thing (an exceprt I made), unless anyone stops me”

“…the essential features of republicanism:

(1) Sovereignty resides in the people or their representatives;

(2) All citizens are equal before the law;

(3) Although there can be inequalities of wealth, all citizens should have a measure of economic independence; otherwise factions, demagogues, & tyranny will result;

(4) Republics are morally intrusive; that is, they enjoy a distinctive way of life binding together generations; & this way of life is rooted in a law not made by the legislature, but is rooted in nature or sacred tradition. Governments can only legislate in accord with law; they do not make law;

(5) Republics must be small…In the cacophony of talk about republics, lip service at least is paid to all of the above conditions except (5). Size is not thought to be an essential feature of republicanism. Size, it is said, is a mere quantitative notion, not a moral one. But this is a great mistake. Size is essential…

The proper size of a republic, or of anything else, is determined by its function. The size must be in scale with the function. And the scale for all human things is the human being & its physical & mental capacities. The relative size of a bed has not changed over the millennia because its function has not changed. A committee of 400 is too large for the function of a committee. A cottage is not a small mansion, and a mansion is not a large cottage. Everywhere in the human world the goodness of a thing is inseparable from the question of its function &, consequently, of its size & scale. The function of a republic, according to Plato & Aristotle, is to provide a form of social cooperation which makes possible the development of human excellence, namely economic prosperity, security, justice, practice of the arts & sciences, & philosophic institutions that critically explore the idea & conditions of human excellence.

How many people are needed for such an arrangement?

Plato suggested around 5 thousand citizens, which, when women, children, slaves & foreigners are added, would yield a republic of around 40 thousand — something one could walk across in a single day, or as Aristotle said, something one could take in at a single view. Robert Dahl, a long time student of democratic institutions, has judged that a population of between 50 to 200 thousand is all that is necessary to create a political order allowing humans to flourish to a high degree. This judgment is amply confirmed by experience, for the great republics of history: Athens, republican Rome, the medieval republics & communes, Renaissance Florence & Venice, the German free cities, & many others fall within, or are below, th[is] range.

Modern writers on republicanism such as Montesquieu & Rousseau agreed that republics had to be small. So small is Rousseau’s republic in “The Social Contract” that he does not even permit representatives but requires that the sovereign people themselves regularly meet to vote on constitutional matters & to evaluate the performance of government. Rousseau’s republic is modeled on his beloved Geneva which had, at that time, a population of around 25 thousand.

The republican tradition is loud & clear in its proclamation that republican order, properly understood, must be of a human scale which we have taken to be, more or less, in the range of between 50 to 200 thousand. And the tradition also teaches that if a regime grew to great size, it would necessarily lose its self-governing republican character & become a centralized monarchy no matter what it called itself. The classical case was the Roman republic which, because of its great size — achieved through conquest — had collapsed into a centralized empire. Yet the legitimating language of republicanism remained throughout. Up to the end, laws were enacted under the seal S.P.Q.R (the Senate & the People of Rome), but republican liberty had vanished.

The point here is that monarchy is not merely an abstract form of government, it is a centralization of power that occurs spontaneously & necessarily whenever a republic grows beyond its proper size. It is for this reason that the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume insisted that republics contain a law in their constitutions against conquests. They cannot both expand their territories & still be republics. And conversely, Hume also observed that a small kingdom tends either to become a republic or to develop republican characteristics merely because of its size. So size is not a morally irrelevant criterion of republicanism; it is essential.

The being of a republic is its being small…After the secession of the colonies from Britain, Americans faced a deep & unprecedented conceptual problem. They understood the republican tradition & were determined to extend it to the new world, but they had inherited territory of such a size as to require centralized monarchy. We should be clear what the colonists meant by monarchy. They did not mean merely an hereditary executive; they meant a large centralized unitary state (such as Britain was becoming) ruling directly over individuals. The form the central government took was irrelevant. In this sense, there were a few monarchists in America. They admired the centralized British state & wanted to develop an American version of it. At the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, Alexander Hamilton proposed a unitary state with an executive for life who could appoint state governors & veto state laws. His proposal, however, did not even receive a second. Instead Americans agreed on a federation of sovereign states that delegated enumerated powers to the central government as their agent, reserving the vast domain of unenumerated powers to themselves. They enshrined this in Article, IV, Section IV which guarantees to each State a republican form of government.

So republicanism in America was to be a feature of the States & not a feature of the federation. “Federation” comes from the Latin foedus, meaning a compact or treaty between previously governing bodies. A federal union of republics is not itself a republic because it cannot satisfy the five conditions mentioned above – notably the condition of size. Or to put it another way, if the federation were a republic, the political societies within in it would cease to be self-governing republics & would collapse into mere administrative units of the mega-republic — & this would be merely monarchy under another name. In the Virginia Resolutions (1798) James Madison used the term “monarchy” in just this way when he accused the Federalist Party of trying to consolidate the states by degrees, into one sovereignty…which would be, to transform the present republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy.”

Mr. Potts, is there a moral line in making profits?

In Iraq, and so far in Afghanistan, the US military has been extremely fortunate not to have run into a much greater assortment of cheap, lethal weapons than they have.

With a $6.00 DSP chip, a dozen cheap unidirectional microphones, and a couple of servos, I could rig a .50-cal machine gun to listen for whatever I wanted. Autonomous target aquisition, and fire control. It would not run, flinch, mess itself, or stop firing until the sound is eliminated.

Would that be just fine with you if I sold this weapon to anyone who wanted one?

Cheap electronics can turn the military’s own communications against itself. There are many, many ways to cheaply impede our force structure. Should I be profitting from them?

K Ackermann:
First, thanks for the specifics I asked for regarding yet another class-action lawsuit in behalf of victims of the Holocaust over 50 years ago. I am pursuing the matter with great interest, as inquiry into such things has virtually displaced my previous interest in Austrian economics.

Second, there definitely ARE moral aspects to production and distribution, but who should define and enforce them, and how, remain very troubling questions to me (hint:NOT the government). MAYBE such things cannot be enforced by anyone in any way that does not produce more injustice than it prevents and/or compensates. I know that every time I imagine particulars of such an arrangement, it comes crashing down amid my values of freedom and prosperity.

So, if you DO start marketing the Ackermann Automated Perimeter-Defense System you described, let me know. I just might have use for it. Of course, I promise to put it only to uses of which future generations of litigants will approve. I wouldn’t want your heirs getting stripped of their profits fifty-odd years hence for something I did before they were born.

Nice descriptions of Ackerman all, thank you, Russ. Ignore the rest, of course, Mr. Objectivity.

I have no idea why one can’t show both the stupidity of an argument and when the propaganda keeps on coming also remark on the apparently willful, never-ending stupidity of some commenters. You are in fact attacking me now, that’s your right. Always amuses me how you can’t take a fraction of what you like to dish out.

Thanks for the sermon. A fascinating display of projection as it comes from someone who admitted tries to purify the place of anarchists.

“politely debate people instead”

At first, months ago now, when he wasn’t directly insulting me and the authors here, I politely debated him until he proved to be a wholly determined advocate.

“proves himself unamenable to reason…why not just ignore him”

I generally do, sometimes his crap becomes unbearable, particularly when he is saying something that he has been corrected on over and over and over again.

“Sometimes I think you’re an infiltrator”

What a load of garbage. Anyone stupid enough to think that one irritable libertarian makes the lot of them the same isn’t worth a damn in the first place. I only get nasty with very few, you are full of it. I get nasty with those that prove to have nasty agendas like you, Randroids and this lefty.

“prefer not to have to take it or dish it out”

You’re just more subtle, that is all. You have an ego the size of a Buick and that’s probably your main motivation for blogging. That’s OK, your sermons I can do without.

“Why?”

No one has been chased anywhere. This guy has been spewing propaganda, insults and outright dis-information almost non-stop for months now, and he will continue to do so. Nothing could ever penetrate his wildly inflated self-image, don’t worry about it. Follow him along in the future as he makes further calls for god knows what, like the time he was agitating for credit card debtors to rebel against their oppressors. He needs to be mocked and screams for it. If the moderators don’t like it, they’ll throw me off, I’ll understand.

Yeah, so Pia Varma has some good points.

One final point here hopefully, and this is all deeply related to the issues of libertarianism in general though this isn’t the best place for it unfortunately.

Understand what it boils down to when state advocates like Ackerman and Russ always want to politely discuss their plans to have their favorite men with guns confiscate your money and screw things up with it: none of their garbage, (Ackerman’s harebrained schemes he’s constantly hatching or Russ’s fear of Muslims making him call for domestic “HUMINT”, or whatever) should ever be up for any sort of debate. Sure, some can and will take a scholarly approach in showing the idiocy of their positions, but it should never even be entertained that their aggressively violent wishes are under consideration. Their goverment has lost all moral authority they may have had and must disband. There is no debate.

Ah, “Gimme-my-nukes Gil” is calling me extreme. No ideals other than not hearing serfs moronically discuss what Washington should do next. It’s the primary reason we’ve lost so much of our liberty, this “We The People” delusion.

At least Gil doesn’t have the sermon with his dis-information and sly insults. Again to your “why [the] acrimony”, Russ: you people (now the three of you here) are enemies of my liberty. You want you masters to steal from me to get the things you think you need (I don’t know about Gil, he’s just a lunatic who enjoys power and dominance for its own sake). The State put three outposts in your three heads; the fight is with words and I have determined that the three of you have far too inflated egos to ever change the courses you’ve gone down. So when I feel like it, I try to discredit your propaganda for third parties to see.

Here’s a link to her burgher blog:

http://web.me.com/dagtag/Site_7/LaissezFaireLounge.com/Entries/2009/10/15_Libertarianism_Is_Just_A_Widget.html#comment_layer