Tuesday, July 10, 2007

More answers to questions from my loyal readers

The problem is that the proclivities of man to take advantage of his fellow man is magnified a thousand fold by the camouflage of legitimacy that government gives to aggression and theft. The "you can't fight city hall" effect has been beaten into us forever. People believe in government like a religion. They are indoctrinated in government schools to believe that government is the answer to all the problems rather than the cause.

"It seems to me that Anarcho Capitalism is based on the following two basic principles.

*) That the right to have your ownership property/possesions respected is in some way given "รก priori" and natural state for human beeings. "


This is one school of thought, yes. The other school, which I adhere too, is much more utilitarian. For me, "rights" are abstract constructs that do not exist in the world outside our heads. However, the concept of property rights is entirely congruent with human nature, and the system of property rights serves as the best possible system of minimizing human conflict, and maximizing human life, liberty, and standard of living for the largest possible number of people. I think that is a good thing (although of course this is subjective). In short, "rights" are convenient constructs that provide the best possible social outcomes.


" The right to use (unprovoked) force/coersion/violence to acieve what you want is moraly wrong and something humans don't naturaly do."


The second half does not follow at all. Yes, some ACists believe that initiating force, coersion, violence, is immoral. Others, like me, see "immoral" as again, a convenient construct that really means, has very bad outcomes. But nobody is claiming that human beings are not by their very nature violent.

Human beings have two sides to their "coin." One side is the tendency to cooperate. The other side is the tendency to aggress. The thing about capitalism is that it channels the aggression into competition, which is good for everyone. The thing about government is that it channels the aggression into, well, aggression. Violence, force, coersion, etc.

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