Andrew Leonard

please continue justifying imperialism on a libertarian forum

An individual can score a high IQ, perhaps. To draw any conclusions on a society, saying it's functionally mentally deficient based on no scientific study, is just an excuse for oppression, which is exactly what you said: They're dumb, so the Spanish should occupy, oppress, and control them. Great libertarian minds here.

He literally said, and I quote, exactly, from the post: "The best thing that could happen to Guatemala at this point is resurgent Spanish imperialism"

I don't think anything of the average IQ of Guatemala because it's not only a useless concept, it's an invalid one.

I need to delve into this "once the boot of the CCP left their throat." The CCP still controls the country, so what boot would that be that left?

I think the average Guatemalan IQ doesn't matter, because IQ is not useful as any kind of measurement, beyond people who get tingles on being in Mensa.

I'm assuming that's who you're citing as well, but they didn't do any surveys. Did you actually look at their methodology? "In those cases, the authors have used an estimated value by taking averages of the IQs of neighboring or comparable nations. For example, the authors arrived at a figure of 84 for El Salvador by averaging their calculations of 79 for Guatemala and 88 for Colombia." Yep, sounds like we can surely paint an entire society as noticeably mentally deficient based on averaging some numbers of unknown provenance for "comparable" nations.

You made a mistake in citing IQ as some excuse for imperialism; you would do well to just back away and shut up unless you enjoy people pointing and giggling you and your 79 IQ.

That's now your third opportunity to cite your source essentially saying that, somehow, the average IQ of a nation is 20 points lower than the average human IQ. I believe that's enough chances afforded you, champ.

So you're saying it's no one's property, since presumably they are also paying for it. But property must have an owner, otherwise it can be homesteaded by a new owner. So, I'm not sure you're making sense.

Ah, you're not a libertarian. Okay, carry on.

"Please, join our school. To make the pitch, I will use gendered language to insult a woman." quality work as always, friends.

So... you have the right to prevent someone else from allowing people on their property? I know the US isn't ancapistan but I wasn't aware that meant you could unilaterally cancel someone's property rights just because you didn't like what they did with it.

Are we to assume that you feel like you have the right to go to an apartment building and forcibly evict anyone on welfare?

If I go to your house and prevent you from entering it, I own it? I don't think that makes any sense so let's let you take another shot at this response.

So you have the right to prevent someone else from allowing people on their property?

"freedom is good unless a random test considers you dumb, in that case then you don't get freedom, you're better off being oppressed" now that's a quality libertarian stance

We all use Google, baby. Some of us just don't have a weird issue over admitting it.

You seem to have missed the point - 79 is not the "average IQ" of anywhere. IQ tests are necessarily culturally-specific, and I'm reasonably sure no one's widely tested any society, let alone enough to be able to say that the "average" in Guatemala is 79.

So, again, curious: What's your source? Did you just google "IQ of Guatemala" and pick the first random website you found, or is there a genuine study on this?

By what right do you prevent people from crossing property you don't own?

Look who googled "IQ of Guatemala" without any sense of knowing what IQ even is.

Only if the person in the right can actually hire a skilled and expensive lawyer. If they can't, then ... it kind of implies that poor people can never sue rich ones, because if they lose (and that may not necessarily because their case was bad - we all know the justice system is heavily flawed) then they're out, well, everything. The saner move is not to play at all. And because of that, no justice will be done.

"So you’re free to switch from GM to Ford, from Yale to MIT, from Burger King to McDonald’s. And vice versa. Talk about democracy!"

You're free to switch from Oregon to Alabama, from the US to Canada, from France to Germany, from Angola to Zimbabwe. The free market in countries has supplied myriad competitors. You need only vote with your dollars and feet.

No one's forcing them to do anything they don't want to. You have resorted only to name calling.

I see no walls keeping you in; you're welcome to go somewhere else if you can't conduct your business according to your ethics. It's called freedom, look it up.

"Impossible given the long list of regulations and labor laws imposed on any enterprise" not my problem. if they choose to work with the beast, they are the beast. don't like it, don't be here. let the free market decide.

People are only ever paid just slightly less than the cost of replacing them. A janitor is absolutely required for the success of a company, but can be paid pennies because it's easy to replace them who, due to whatever reasons, will accept fewer pennies. Wage has never been about importance to the organization or the economy, it's always been about how to extract the most labor for the lowest cost.

In fact the Canada Act 1982 was passed by the British parliament, so I'd say they weren't surprised at all. They didn't "tell a superior government," the "superior government" shook their hand and waved bye.

If only that was something that could be instantly checked: Nope, she's not queen of anywhere substantial in Africa, just a handful of islands, nothing that would come anywhere near a billion acres. In fact, the total area of all the countries she's queen of is less than 6 billion acres. Maybe if you include their Antarctic claims?

This article started off with a poorly researched fact, what makes you people think the rest is going to improve from there?

Yeah, no, that has nothing to do with this. What are you talking about? He stated that somehow Elizabeth lords over 6 billion acres; even at the most generous interpretation, that's not possible, and using his words specifically, is two orders of magnitude off.

Land isn't population, as you should know.

"Today the ultimate landowner, Queen Elizabeth of England, at least symbolically controls 6 billion acres of British territories far beyond the Crown Estate."

wow, a lot to unpack here. First of all, the entirety of "British" land totals no more than 60 million acres. Even if you include Canada and Australia - lands of which she is the queen of, but are not "British territories" - that only brings you up to 4.5 billion acres.

Where did 6 billion come from?

what

Yes, they were. They got better. Lew didn't.

Oh, wait, you aren't Eiji. Don't recall asking you, mate.

Ah but that was additional info; I'm curious what your diagnosis of me was before I shared that.

Gladly:
https://www.lewrockwell.com...
https://www.lewrockwell.com...
https://www.lewrockwell.com...

No, I will not accept "That's not this site" as an excuse. Rockwell is the chairman of this organization, his statements and website matter. I would have searched this site but, according to its search function, no one here has ever had anything to say on the Uyghurs - I guess they leave the more incendiary stuff to LRC. Plausible deniability, maybe, like when he ghostwrote Ron Paul's newsletters.

Allow me to be absolutely clear: I have no beef with most libertarians. I very much have a beef with Rockwell, and this institute is run by him. Why do I dislike him so much? Because I used to love his work. I used to read LRC and this site daily. And then I got better. And looking back on what he writes now, I am absolutely disgusted. I see his anti-gay, anti-trans, racist invective whose message is always "The US/NATO/EU are worse than everyone else, no matter what," and worry: Would I have agreed with this 15 years ago? And I honestly don't know. And I hate that about myself, and I hate that he makes me feel that way.

That's pretty non-specific, care to elaborate on what you perceive are my mental issues?

"The United States Is Even Worse"

And there we have the mission statement of the Rockwell wing of the libertarian movement. Nothing is ever worse than what the US does, hence the Rockwellians bending over backwards to justify Russian and Chinese aggression and crimes.

I see. Sorry for misunderstanding you, then. I agree - change is pain, but pain can be managed and harnessed into action.

I can't provide a citation where the existence of externalities is being denied, because the concept does not exist in this article. The absence of evidence is evidence of absence, in this case. If I wrote an article about the history of China and left out any mention of Taiwan, I would be rightly criticized for omitting Taiwan, and no one would be able to cite anything proving that I omitted Taiwan because - and I feel like I've repeated this - it's been omitted. I can't cite what isn't there.

"Markets by their very nature involve voluntary action by consenting parties, which by definition is nonexploitative," is a pretty straightforward statement. By their very nature, markets cannot be exploitative, that is explicitly what is being stated here.

If this is an article written for the choir then I expect better than babby's first libertarianism. Externalities exist and matter - and that needs to be acknowledged, and acknowledge how they are to be handled. "Voluntary and consensual" is not in fact always good and happy and non-exploitative. (I mean, if they didn't want me to compare it to exploitation, they shouldn't have used that word)

And if it's written to evangelize, it's also doing a bad job, as it insults the people it's aimed at.

Long story short, as I've been saying this whole time: It's a bad article that shouldn't have been written by a college professor and published on this august website. Instead, people bring up something about how governments pollute as a way to justify this article's low quality, as if that's remotely relevant.

"Maybe to cater to more mainstream audiences, maybe to make Mises more palatable to statists, who knows."

Well good thing this article contains the lines, "Despite the lack of rigorous thought that characterizes much of today’s anticapitalism," and, "while the critics never will move past their own anticapitalist assumptions," because the best way to cater to those who disagree with you is insult them multiple times. No, the only explanation is this is somehow designed to preach to the choir, and it's doing a massive disservice in that.

Wait, there are serious lib/ancap authors here? Then why is mises.org publishing this dreck?

Spoken either as someone who has never experienced chronic pain, is a liar, or is a sociopath. Considering your obsession with CRT, I'm guessing at least two of the three.

today i learned that if my paycheck is $500 but I spent $600 to get it, I have profited $500

thanks mises dot org

"Slavery isn't exploitation" is really the hot take I expect from this place, so thanks. Get back to me when you are able to comprehend that "voluntary and consensual" can still be extremely exploitative and oppressive. Thanks.

Weird, because my comments have had nothing to do with government actions. I haven't brought up government once, except in response to people bringing it up, as if that obviates the author from doing better.

With which part?

"The era of its greatest flourishing was not coincidentally the 19th century, the century in which classical liberal ideology reigned, a century of unprecedented material progress and peaceful relations between nations."

Is there any kind of academic study this statement is based on? Was the 19th century notably more peaceful than the 18th or 17th centuries? There were still many bloody and destructive wars, notably the Napoleonic Wars, the European colonization of Asia and Africa, the Taiping Rebellion, etc.

The article didn't mention externalities at all, let alone what role the government has in creating and/or alleviating them. You're jumping way ahead what this simplistic article was even attempting to communicate. It's a 1st grade understanding of libertarianism written by a college professor on this website, you should expect better.

Based on the definition given in the article, if someone is near death and I say "I will save you, but only if you become my slave in perpetuity," I feel like that would be exploitative, whereas this author would consider it just a voluntary trade between consenting parties.

Is this an edge case? Yes. Is it something that betrays the extremely simplistic message this college professor attempted to put forward? Absolutely. The idea that he can simply handwave away anything as okay as long as it's "voluntary and consenting" is doing a massive disservice to the audience and to whatever he's trying to espouse.

Okay. Did I say that? You might be confusing this with a different conversation.

"Markets by their very nature involve voluntary action by consenting parties, which by definition is nonexploitative." Do you agree with this statement? If so, then how do you define exploitation?

The article is simplistic to the point of being useless. They actually wrote, "Markets by their very nature involve voluntary action by consenting parties, which by definition is nonexploitative," which is babby's first libertarianism. It would be like uncritically saying "taxation is theft." It's not remotely close to what a college professor should be writing on for the world's most famous libertarian institute.

Cool. What's your point?

So, my complaint was that this article didn't address any of this. I'm not here to address it - I'm here to ask why such a simplistic treatment of the subject was published, on this website, written by a college professor.

Now there's the quality conscience I've come to expect from my former lot.

We're nowhere near the point of a solution, the issue isn't even being acknowledged.

Mazel tov.

I guess it makes it easier for you if you can come up with an excuse to not confront legitimate issues with the content here. So if you want to avoid it so bad, why even still talk to me?

No, but when I was a budding 17 year old libertarian it's exactly the kind of simplistic, reductive thing I would have come up with.

I'm not attempting to disprove anything; I'm saying they communicated a very simplistic understanding of human interaction, and certainly not an understanding one would expect from a professor of economics. It feels dumbed down to the level of being essentially meaningless.

And a reminder that this thread has been me complaining about the article, and the only responses so far are attacks on me and not really anything on the article. Cool.

I guess I'll ask: How do y'all define "exploitation," because I can think of a ton of ways how "voluntary action between consenting parties" can be extremely exploitative. So maybe we're working from different dictionaries here.

Does it matter what I say? You'll assume I'm one of the socks anyway.

This article was simplistic to the point of being useless and not at all what one would expect from someone at a public university. I mean, they actually wrote, "Markets by their very nature involve voluntary action by consenting parties, which by definition is nonexploitative." This is such a reductive understanding of the concept that I'm actually shocked it made it to this site. It's the kind of thing a 17 year old would come up with; I know I did.

"while the critics never will move past their own anticapitalist assumptions" So I guess this isn't intended to convince anyone, but rather just fellate the choir with its simplicity? "Yes yes, this is exactly how the world works or should work, grumble grumble grumble dumb socialists."

Calling me a troll is an ad-hom, as my response was genuine: You can't discuss the nature of "profits vs people" without discussing negative externalities, which are one of the major points of the concept.

As for Nazis, I mean, shrug. If you want to cite this as some Godwin's Law thing then go for it, fortunately I don't care. You should care about them being given free reign on the comments on this site, instead of attacking me for wanting you people to do better.

"the government does it worse" isn't a justification. Didn't say profits were the primary driver of pollution. They are, however, a driver - if a company will save money by forcing externalities, then it will. Because why wouldn't it? But thanks for using some whataboutism to avoid actually confronting anything. And thanks for the ad-hom, exactly what I expect from this place that accepts Nazis but can't deal with a remotely contrary opinion.

Not one mention of externalities or pollution, apart from painting it as some form of strawman. A shameful article.

Understood. Let me rewrite it then:

"The landlord threat is death. If they come to try to evict you for not paying your rent and you resist enough to stop them, they'll kill you."

Better now? Or are you going to deny that your complaint about government also applies to landlords?

Since when? If I refuse to pay rent, force will be used to evict me. If I resist, deadly force will be used.

The landlord threat is death. If they come to take you to jail for not paying your rent and you resist enough to stop them, they'll kill you. I ask people if it's immoral for me to .. wait, no, you're arguing exactly that, I can't even mock at this point.

"calling any critique of global Zionism anti-semitism" No, it has nothing to do with the critique - it's the mere use of the term "global Zionism" and the fact that you think there's a global cabal of evil Juden, THAT is what's anti-semitic.

We're done here. And the rest of you Miseans, you might be comfortable with Nazis (and I know you are, I've read your articles and how they glow about the people who want to cleanse their nations because they might lower your taxes a few points), but I'm not. Vaya con dios, comrades.

I'm starting to think you can not see the subtle hints I'm laying down. Try reading my comments out loud, and see if you can still not see what I'm calling you.

Then again, those who can not see aren't exactly the smartest bunch, especially compared to those who aren't notsees. Whoops, I think I spoiled it.

I can not see how that's relevant. Why did you not see it relevant to ask if I was a Jew? How can you not see how this is a really dumb tact to take, and how can the mods not see that this doesn't belong here, unless they can not see why it's bad...

Sounds like you don't like your job. Maybe having that UBI will allow you to pursue your true passions; or, if the job is really crappy, they'll have to pay more since people will no longer be forced to take crappy jobs just to survive.

There's a reason even some libertarian thinkers supported a basic income.

4-30: Any of the roughly 26 other reasons someone might want socialism that don't involve you thinking they're lazy.

No, no, you don't get to use the whole thing. You asked if I was a Bolshevik; now ask if I'm a Jew. Isn't it relevant?

I honestly did not see the conversation coming to this, but then again I could not see how the moderators would let such a comment sit for four years. I could not see what reason they could have to let such a thing slide. I'm surprised by how easily people here can not see ... You're getting my point by now, right?

The only harm here is to the Mises Institute's reputation, such as it is.

What, would it have been too crass for you to accuse me of being Juden?

*kisses fingers* delicious

I know this site will remove comments and people they don't like; that this one has been there for four years speaks volumes.

today i learned no libertarian has ever murdered someone

You are seriously defending an anti-semitic comment. Cool.

Here, let me help:

"Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, which alleges that the Jews were the originators of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and that they held primary power among the Bolsheviks who led the revolution. Similarly, the conspiracy theory of Jewish Communism alleges that Jews have dominated the Communist movements in the world, and is related to The Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory (ZOG), which alleges that Jews control world politics."

yeah wow how could anyone think it was anti-semitic.

hey guys, the fact that you're reprinting articles from four years ago with their anti-semitic comments really highlights the quality we've come to expect from mises dot org

Ahh, the classic argument of "if reality disagrees with libertarianism, then reality is wrong."

"How would anyone limit what someone else owns?" Well, eventually with violence. For example, if someone says they own your house, and you disagree, harsh language is only going to go so far - at some point, the shotguns come out.

You seem to think that property is this magical thing that everyone respects on a core, unavoidable level, both the process of acquiring and the process of maintaining. It's not. It's a construct created by people, enforced by people.

So, who has the right to limit what land someone owns? Literally everyone else. Because rights are also a construct, created by people, enforced by people. You can scream all you want that you own land, but if no one else agrees, well, I guess you're going down fighting? Great job on that right, you really showed them. And a property claim is a claim against every single person.

There, I answered your question. Mazels.

So because I use my body to cultivate land, (that no one else has claimed, because it doesn't count if I mix labor with land that someone mixed it with centuries ago) that grants me absolute power over the land? So absolute power, which as we all know corrupts absolutely, is good in small doses?

So.. you'll surely limit how much land someone can own, to prevent them from accumulating too much absolute power, right?

So, no property owners? Because if you're going to say that anyone can have absolute power over any plot of land, then you're giving them power over someone else. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, and this is something to be prevented, then no one can have absolute power over anything but their own body.

If people don't like living under a state they've entered into, then they can either try and renegotiate the laws or move somewhere else. Literally no different.

Please keep in mind - I'm not saying any of this to prop up the legitimacy of the state. It has its own issues. I'm saying that the sovereign, dictatorial nature of libertarian property creates a permanent two-class system, which seems highly contradictory for a philosophy that pretends to be about individual freedom.

(Then there's also the contradictory issue of who decides a property claim is legitimate. If property is an outgrowth of the self, and we own ourselves, then that right cannot, by any means, be up to the whims of the crowd. Therefore, the crowd cannot be the ones who decide if your property claim is legitimate. So when two property claims clash and neither wants to give way... time for the shotguns, I guess?)

Who would you renegotiate with if the original person is long dead? They sold the property to someone else on the proviso that action "X" would never be allowed on that property. The person they sold it to agreed, and so on down the line. Now you're saying it can just be changed? Do we have to wait for the original person to die, or wait x years (and this can't be stipulated in the contract, because then it could be an infinite number), etc.?