Why I stopped loving and learned to worry about democracy (reply to Oberon)

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Dowly

This why we have private messages.

POTY

TLDR doesn't seem adequate enough for the first couple of posts in this thread.

[Skybird]

Quote Skybird: Needless to say: we do not have that kind of money anymore, it got intentionally destroyed by states to expose citizens in greater helplessness and vulnerability to the state. More on that later.

Quote Oberon:I would say that this varies, there is still a market for barter through private means, ebay for example, and although it is a very competative market, there is a market for intellectual labour too. If there was not then people like Mark Zuckerberg would not have amassed a great fortune.
The opportunities are still there, but the competition is so great that many people are unable to get into the market. Is this the fault of the states or the inevitable result of a free market? But yes, we will cover this later.

I am clueless where you come from here, it seems to me you were replying to something that I did not say or mean, or that you misunderstood. I meant the way in which money basing on the gold standard was replaced with the gold derivates, and the gold derivates then was replaced with paper money. Could you elaborate on why you gave that answer of yours? I am in loss over it'S context.

Also do not know where to sort your mentioning of Ebay and Facebook.

Quote Skybird: As I hinted above, the reason for the rise of civilizations is: trade. Help it and foster. Hinder it, see it declining, and see civilization decline and empires fall. And then again the complex productivity cycle, specialisation, all what I said above. If I understand you correctly in what you say, then I think you are misled there in so far as that you seem to misidentify or misinterpret the solid material factors that enable empires and civilizations to blossom. Where there is plenty of ground and population to be supplied with food and stuff, there is needed an infrastructure, a transport of food and water and items and goods and services, there needs to be information traffic for coordination. All this needs specialisation by the individuals, and specialised individuals forming huge communities depend on means and a system of making all these quantities and items “inter-changeable”, so that you could compare their valuer: economic management, fiscal cost-effect calculations. Just having a government, no matter which kind, saying it should be like this or that, does not work. And this is one of the most devastating criticism you can aim at today's tyranny of government-printed FIAT paper-”money” and fiscal regulation by the state: that both prevent everybody joining the market as producer or customer to form such value comparisons and fiscal cost-effect calculations by eroding the basis on which such comaprsions could be run. For that, a free value-determination of money by the market is inevitably a precondition. But that is what politicians desperately try to prevent.

Quote Oberon: I am not entirely sure where you are coming from in this respect. I agree that the growth of a civilisation requires the networking of food, water and services...but where it falls apart is when you start mentioning about the prevention of everybody joining the market as producer of customer. Surely we are all in a market of some nature as a producer or consumer. For example, I produce security and cleanliness during my night-shift, for this I am paid and this money then goes into the purchase and consumption of both leisure and necessary items. Therefore at the most basic level I am a producer and consumer. Of course, there are people who are unable to produce, and some who are simply unwilling, and the latter spoil the life of the former by prejudicing the general public and government against them, but that is a rant for another topic completely.

No, what I mean is that you depend on money – true money – as a currency that does not get manipulated by the state in its “prescribed” value, but whose value gets negotiated by the market, because money is nothing special but is just like any other object category that gets freely traded. That seems to be something that many people do not see, and government reject it anyway, since it would threaten the very basis of their power and spending. Obviously, which is my argument, FIAT money does not represent market's assessment of the value of a given currency, it is not money like a gold-standard-money. You can see it today how distorted the relative values of the international currencies to each other are, and in the eurozone you cannot even speak of any market-based measurement of the value of the Euro it all, it is a completely political item now, it gets massively manipulated by governments, by low interest policy decisions, and by changing the ammount of printing money. Also, there is the problem of competitive and uncompetitive economies, with the latter no longer being able to compensate by devaluing their currency, which enforces a currency that is disconnected from their economic potency and competitiveness.

So what I mean is if you want to participate in the market, you depend on making calculations that compare costs versus effects, investments versus profits, items versus services, and so on. You need a commonly agreed standardised value for that, like you need an agreement on which numerical system to use in order to talk with somebody else about math. If the one bases on the decimal system and the other on the hexadecimal system and they are not aware of it, they run into problems. FIAT money is not value scaling that the market agrees on and that the market negotiates. It is government-made and -wanted, the value gets planned by planners, and if reality does not meet that in the real economy, than hectic efforts break out in order to manage the currency, to regulate the currency even more, to implement monetarian management, and so on and on and on – everything that politicians are so great in.

Money, correctly understood and left in its original format, does not need any monetarian policy or fiscal management, not at all! That is only needed if politicians want to manipulate money on behalf of their interest. It always is a distortion of money.

Also, FIAT money is different than a gold coin. A gold coin you ´can take to a trader, and you will always get the market price for gold for it. The currency not only represents a value, it IS a value. Cannot be said of a banknote. Imagine a currency collapses. If it was gold-based, then no mater the number on the coin you still can sell it as an item of gold. A banknote is just a worthless piece of paper if the printed number on it is no longer agreed to represent any mandatory service by the other whom you wan to pay with it for something, service or material item.

There is plenty of problems with FIAT money, and I would not even call it money, because it is not in the real meaning of the function that money had when it started to get used in the far away past. Value money is a value in itself, and real economy is linked to it and gets represented by it. FIAT money has no such value, but is an – legally not binding promise only, it is a debt bond. It is no value that goes beyond just a hoped-for value, and imagined value that is hoped to materialise in the future (FIAT: Latin: “it may become”, “it shall be” – the value shall still materialise in the future, but is not rere in the present). It is just a playing coin in a snowballing system where oyu place yoiur bet on debts. With real money that has nothing to do, nothing.

I recommend Detlev Schlichter: Paper Money Collapse. The Folly of Elastic Money, published 2011, and awarded with the Get Abstract International Book Award 2012: it's on the implications of FIAT money in today's present situation and why the collapse is not a question of If, but When; and again Rothbard's “What the state has done to our money”, which so nicely demonstrates why the states after WWI had such a huge self-interest to destroy value-money and replace it with paper-tokens and debt bonds instead. And that is exlcusively about accumulating power for the state, and making the citizens more dependent on the state, and exposing them to the state's claims in maximum weakness possible. Paying war bills after 1918, 1945 and 1971 has less to do with it than usually gets mentioned. I fell for that explanation myself in the past, but I had to realise that I was wrong there and that the explanation is too superficial

In an indeal world for a government, every member of society would produce work-hours and consume the result of the work-hours of other people. For example, my security and cleanliness enables people who stay at the hotel I work at to sleep in the knowledge that the place is unlikely to burn down around them and when they eat their breakfast in the morning it is unlikely to be shared by a cockroach or a rat. Equally, when I go to a shop, I am paying for the products of someone elses work, be it a person working on an assembly line, or a farmer growing the crops that I eat.
Obviously in todays market the person who grow the crops is likely to live on the other side of the planet, but aside from the fact that the entire world (well, most of it) is a market now, what is the difference between this and the world of six hundred years ago when democracies were rare and few and far between?

The two different moneys back then and today make the difference. The first cannot destroy the economic cycle. The latter can, and due to the inner dynamics of both FIAT money and a democratic system, it inevitably will.

A printed banknote saying “one dollar”, leaves oyu dpeending on the good willingness of the other whith whom you trade. One silver dollar however will always get you as far as one dollar reaches, you do not need the good willingness of the other.

In principle, every time you accept to get payed with FIAT money, you gamble on that the snowballing system will carry on.

But one day, it will no longer. And then only the one at the top wins. All others loose.

I forgot to mention another detail, although I explained it briefly in some other, older thread, I recall. That democracy see politicians making ever growing promises and voters demanding ever more, and that this in an unholy alliance between the two that leads always to the state spending more than it can afford, should have become clear by now. There is also another reason why states' elites love to print money. In a healthy economy, it does not matter whether there is more or less of items circulating that are being used as money, coins for example. If there is a shortage in gold coins, now rare gold becomes precious and prices for other items thus go down: you get more for your gold coin than before. If there get gold coins pumped into the market, gold becomes less valuable, and you have to give more coins for the same item like before, since prices go up. The market manages the money all by itself, no government intervention needed. Of course, the state must have the economic power to produce more gold coins, to buy the gold for minting, and so on. The state cannot just flood the market with goldcoins as he pleases, it is not possible (and that is why value-currencies basing on some form of gold (or other) standard are an insurance against criminal politicians as long as they cannot secure a minting monopoly for themselves and then replace part of the gold in a coin with bronze, silver with tin). It does not matter how much currency pieces are circulating. But today? Paper money allows the state to print money as he pleases, without any control and without any limitation, it does not represent actual real value anyway. The central bank decides to print money, the market gets flooded – and then it takes a while until the inflationary effect drips down from the top to the bottom level of the economic system. That means that for a short while those getting that fresh new money first in their hands, for a short time can buy items at the old, still not adapted price, and with money of which they have for some time more (in buying power), than before. Without doing anything for it, they have a temporary boost in buying power of theirs! Which makes a nice net profit – for nothing! Later, when time has passed and the fresh market got soaked up by all levels of the economy, prices have adapted and went up and you have to pay more of your paper tickets for one item now. That explains to you also what so often is wondered about, if you listen to the economic news: it explains why the injection of new money into the market almost always has no lasting effect and especially has no effect on most parts of an economy. The middle class business only rarely, if ever,. Benefits from such programs. It is always the big sharks, the top players who really are at the very top, who get the cream. The rest – is left with the consequences of growing inflation. Those who benefit from all this, are at the very top of the food chain, because they get their hands on the new money first, and then profit from the still non-adapted prices. Now you know why so many of the elites secretly or often even openly claim that it is in the state's interest to have a certain amount of inflation(which is nothing else but printing money and pumping it into the market), and why a certain amount of inflation is claimed top be desirable. Well, logic and reason has nothing to do with why it is desirable, so much is for certain. A wanted inflation the state cannot enforce with a gold standard currency. Before getting the card blanche for inflation policies, the state must destroy value currencies and must replace them with debt-based paper-tokens that are not linked to and do not represent real value or real economy treasury in a realistic proportion .

It's not a market but a planned economy from A to Z, in this regard. Damn planners. Has the WP economy not shown where that leads...

Also, FIAT money is different than a gold coin. A gold coin you ´can take to a trader, and you will always get the market price for gold for it. The currency not only represents a value, it IS a value. Cannot be said of a banknote. Imagine a currency collapses. If it was gold-based, then no mater the number on the coin you still can sell it as an item of gold. A banknote is just a worthless piece of paper if the printed number on it is no longer agreed to represent any mandatory service by the other whom you wan to pay with it for something, service or material item.

But the market value fluctuates wildly and can be manipulated by numerous means.
The value is only what someone else says it is, just like paper money.
Imagine the market value collapses, like silver did when it was the standard

[Skybird]

Yes, I understand what you mean here. There is only so far that unity of nations can go before it reaches a tipping point. Some people outside of Europe question the likelihood of a giant European superstate emerging, and I laugh at them, since it is incredibly unlikely that European nations could agree on something long enough to do so.

I would not laugh so early, since we see since years how the EU is widening its power and rights against what I still claim to be the majority of European people's desire. In 3 months, there will be election in Germany, and after that much of what has been objected too by Merkel, by wonder and miracle will no longer be objected too . Take me by my words. Germany will agree to legal or illegal means to finance the totally illegal (by EU treaties and EU laws) direct financing of bankrupt states via the ECB. A banking union will follow, the first steps already have been undertaken. Germany will agree to a de facto transfer union. Germany will agree to give more competences form the parliament to the EU, even if pro forma in other countries such giving up of sovereignty will be less smooth. We are being submitted to EU legislation and bureaucracy since over 20 years now, increasingly, and still there is no real resistance to it, especially in Germany.

In the end there will be the European superstate, copying the power structures and administrative structures of the Soviet Union style. Whether it then goes along peacefully or the people violently revolt, is something different. It should be clear to you that I argue that politicians do not care for what people want, and that they demand or imply that people should be accountable to politicians, not the other way around (as the election thing in the democratic circus implies). Our leaders do not owe us, but we owe to them. It is a form of neo-feudalism already.

Also, many people, honestly said, do not care about freedom, as long as they have comfort and their little share of happiness, to put it that way. That's why the sedating of the electorate by bribing it with financial gifts the states in reality cannot afford, works so well! If people would care for the future and their children's perspective, we already would have had that uprise against the EU at it'S püolciies that it enforces against the people, from Islam and migration over 50+% tax burdens to ruining the economy and the fiscal status of the state and raping even the vital essentials of state reason time and time again.

The bills will be presented one day. Then nobody will accept his share of guilt, all will claim to be helpless victims, and everybody will agree that something needs to be done, but not at his cost. Wash my fur but don't make me wet! (German phrase)

There is definitely a move towards devolution in modern society, in the United Kingdom we have the Welsh assembly and the Scottish parliament, both of whom have to pay lip service to Westminster of course, but it is something that did not exist a hundred years ago.
Of course, the problem lies that, if Bavaria, for example, did seperate from Germany, what would stop Poland from invading and occupying it?

Again, that note is about a situation where only one place int her world is chnaged to the “new order”, and all toher places are staying like thexy are today. I already said that the “new ways” implemente dinto the functinality and ways of going of today'S system probbaly will not work too well. The whole issue is aboiut what the world would be like if ALL the world would have changed to the “ner ways”. BTW, what stops Luxembourg or Finland's or Switzerland's neighbours to invade them today?

In a world of private law society, people would have contracts with private enterprise to provide legislative, insurance, policing and military protection services. It wold be no central state holding a monopoly for these, but it would be a business service provided for a fee, and since companies would have an interest to limit or prevent suffering costly damages, they would run legal, police and military action on behalf of their customers – private, free citizens and local/regional communities of these - in ways that emphasize prevention over allowing situation to unfold where sanction is needed. Of course, the barbarians, for example Islamic jihadists and ideologically blinded terrorists, will still be there, and the deterrence of any enterprise in these fields must be robust enough to be credible. Its just that there will be no class of politicians, and no overboarding bureaucracy holding a monopoly for this. Mind you, peoples rarely ever started wars against each others, they instead feared wears. Wars most of the time are decided and declared by governments, not the ordinary people.

Hoppe and Rothbard have written separate books just about security, war and military issues. I refer you to the lists I already provided, since many essays there address the issue as well. It is not being ignored, and got dealt well with already. Again we have the state regulating a people and the society into a state where crime is favoured due to unfavourable social factors the government creates, and wars that the government declares. Police, jurisdiction, military – you do not need a centralised, disconnected govenrment for that. Leave that to where it belongs – to the people of the land.


I read that some historians point out that this kind of conflict – separation, or enforced unifying - also probably played the dominant role motivating the American civil war. Where the war for independence was a revolt against the British who after some time of relative laissez faire wanted to impose a stricter tax system again and tighten British control over and possession of “their colonies”, and the revolt thus was a self-defence on behalf of own sovereignty and own freedom, some historians, but also Hoppe, refer to historical quotes by Lincoln that reveal that Lincoln's decision for war against the South seems to have had not much to do with freeing the poor slaves, but with enforcing a claim for centralist power by Washington not only over the North, but the South as well. I got the impression that he just instrumentalised them for his - very different - intentions, but that ending slavery was not an item he had on his radar for the worth of the very issue itself. Also, apparently the centralised power by the whole union's government should had been supported by destroying the independent currencies circulating in the South (there were several, which from libertarianism's POV, seeing money as just a trading good like any other, was perfectly okay and imo makes more economic sense than any other monetarian model I have read about or heard of, and certainly much more than the bad joke of a paper money we have today). The result was a war that ended the southern money market, destroyed the South's economy and thus it's basis for independent survival, and paved the way for the North's centralised political regime taking control not only of the northern but the southern “provinces” as well.

It is certainly an arguement that can be put forward, and from a rational viewpoint it makes perfect sense, after all 'A house divided against itself cannot stand'. If America had remained split into two entities when the First World War broke out, would either entity have intervened in Europe? Or would the war in Europe spread to America in a resumption of hostilities between the North and the South? Either way America as we know it today would be radically different, and I believe not for the better.

I am not so sure on that. At least it could not have been worse than it is today. The issue of slavery I expect to come to a resolve by itself over time, like the acceptance for it faded in Europe as well. Licoln certainly did not decide for a centralised power governing all the state because he has forseen WWI. And how the US would have reacted to WWI if North and South would not have been united, we simply do not know and can only speculate.

So, yes, a rational and calculating mind would certainly see that an empire that is united is stronger both financially and militarily than one that is divided in on itself. A civil war makes for a weakness, and a weak empire is one that is oft preyed upon by other empires. Were it not for the powderkeg like situation in Europe and the dash in Africa, would Britain have decided to invade the US again whilst they were struggling against the CSA? All situations that have been explored in fiction but certainly one cannot deny that Lincoln and those around him would be acutely aware that a divided house is politically, financially and militarily weaker than a unified one. Having the moral crusade to free the slaves makes it easier to sell to the public, and is certainly a just a noble endeavour, be it the primary or secondary objective of the American civil war or not.

Well, I cannot help but to think why you do not argue for a union between Canada and the US as well, then. And why you do not applaude the EU melting all European states together - at least by intention.

The empire-forming you mentioned by installing unity even against what the people want (and the Southerners absolutely did not seem to like it to get subjugated to Washington's claims for power ) necessarily sees a growing totalitarian control by the state over the people, this should be clear by now. The stronger an empire, the stronger its government, the less free are its people. Sooner or later you come to a point where you have to make a moral decision which side you want to join: the side claiming that freedom goes over strong imperial status, or the side claiming that the empire's needs overrule the private interest for freedom. I mentioned earlier that competing governments in the world reduce themselves in numbers, with the surviving ones becoming stronger and stringer, claiming more and more power, until their power has become so absolute one day that there will be just one world government only – and I stick to that, I tell you that will not be a liberal, free world state, but a totalitarian tyranny.

The whole issue is aboiut what the world would be like if ALL the world would have changed to the “ner ways”.

That would take a bloody big one world government to force the change, it would also require the bloody huge dictatorship to remain in perpetual existance to maintain all the little fiefdoms in the desired order.
Kinda shows why hoppes utopia is a self defeating fantasy which doesn't stand even the briefest scrutiny.

I refer you to the lists I already provided, since many essays there address the issue as well. It is not being ignored, and got dealt well with already.

The lists use examples in history as support where your desired method has proven to be a complete failure. That is what is being ignored and not being dealt with.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Oberon

If America had remained split into two entities when the First World War broke out, would either entity have intervened in Europe?

A side-note. Your bringing this up reminded me of a fun little book I read many years ago but had forgotten. I checked, and sure enough you can get it cheap in the UK as well as the US. Just thought I'd let you know.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Blue-Gr...e+and+the+gray

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon
If America had remained split into two entities when the First World War broke out, would either entity have intervened in Europe?

Of course that depends on how the south was able to defeat the north and what happens in the intervening time.

If the British had helped the Confederates I seriously doubt that the Union would help them defeat Germany. It's hard to imagine it now but in 1914 there was a considerable amount of anti-English sentiment still left over from the Revolution and war of 1812. Interfering in our Civil War would have stoked that dislike to white hot intensity. The British would have been lucky the Union states didn't join on the Kaisers side.

Another possibility to consider had the Confederates won the Civil war was that they would likely soon have fragmented into individual nation states. Given their fierce sense of independence and separate national identity it's not an unreasonable assumption to make. In that event you'd be getting the help of probably less than all of them with no guarantee those that did send troops would be willing to work together.

Finally there is the potential for more wars between the American states after 1865. A Confederate win would not have settled anything. In the following 50 years there would have been plenty to fight over without the unresolved issue of slavery. The Confederacy might not have been able to help fight the Germans because they were fighting wars of their own.