Top income brackets should be taxed at 99%.

Nope. The state should simply settle legal disputes, including those relating to the ownership of land.

 

Aha ...so you are acknowledging rule of law (that's a start...), while still failing to explain how rule of law = "no ruler".

See the contradiction into which your Anarchism leads.

Rule of law ratified by an assembly of elected officials and adjudicated by a court of law.

See Paul Kennedy's "Parliament of Man":

The Parliament of Man is the first definitive history of the United Nations, from one of America’s greatest living historians.Distinguished scholar Paul Kennedy, author of the bestselling The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, gives us a thorough and timely account that explains the UN’s roots and functions while also casting an objective eye on its effectiveness and its prospects for success in meeting the challenges that lie ahead. Kennedy shows the UN for what it is: fallible, human-based, often dependent on the whims of powerful national governments or the foibles of individual administrators—yet also utterly indispensable. With his insightful grasp of six decades of global history, Kennedy convincingly argues that "it is difficult to imagine how much more riven and ruinous our world of six billion people would be if there had been no UN."

The way forward is...forward, not backwards. Voting for the UN 'parliament' will possible in the future when all 7 billion plus of us will be connected by the internet.

But I can close this silly debate about Anarchism versus rule of law, thus:

Given universal and complete education (!), our points of difference on culture, poltics, economics, religion etc will disappear and so...voila, Anarchism - the natural state of Man, ruling himself through voluntary agreement, might finally emerge from the fighting.....

 

Rule of law = "no ruler"? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

I asked whether you are in favor of one single world state or whether you are in favor of anarchy? Which is it?

 

The same has been happening here, too.

But was unsustainable for a very specific reason. 50 years ago, the vast majority of residents were working families on low incomes and a few age pensioners - no one else wanted anything to do with public housing. There weren't loads of single people, nor young under-employed, nor drug addicts/alcoholics/gamblers etc. IOW, there was no demand from people who ****-ups and looking for a free ride. Once society decayed to the point where these demographics started absorbing all the housing, the costs blew out astronomically.

Public housing is a very bad idea unless it's scrupulously policed. No singles for a start (which is an obscene waste of housing), no drugs, no voluntarily unemployed etc. It has to be contingent upon good behaviour, just like anything we do in life in the interests of our own security.

 

I realize you want the state to forcibly strip everyone of their rights and give them to you as your private property, use force against everyone to stop them from defending themselves against your aggression, and not ask you to pay anything in return for that service, but the state can't do that unless it administers possession and use of land, sorry.

 

The state can't merely settle disputes over land titles? Why not?

 

Two absurdities.

1) That you can educate everyone 'completely'. Unless you're going to force that education at gunpoint or threat of starvation, it will NEVER happen. As always, you utterly fail to consider human nature. Not everyone wants to be educated.

2) That education will have any impact on culture/politics/religion etc. ESPECIALLY an unwanted education.

 

I was curious as to whom you were responding so I unmasked everything.

I agree it's absurd to think "...you can educate everyone 'completely'." , whatever that means. The most educated scholars still have differing opinions on any given topic. It is asinine to thing "educating everyone 'completly'" would yield different results. That reveals a basic misunderstanding of the human condition, which in turns reveals the flaws of his economic philosophies. Remember, economics is a social science that studies human behavior.

No, instead of "educating everyone completely" I believe the poster meant "indoctrination". That is a better description.

 

How does it enforce its decisions? And if it can't, you're back to feudalism.

 

Through its police powers. Civics 101.

 

Our pal doesn't hold with difference. He's decided all of humanity will respond to his proposed economic model in exactly the same way. Just like robots. And of course, that means only one possible response - everyone will be miraculously responsible and reasonable! There is no allowance for those who will inevitably choose to abuse the benefits, or who choose economic failure, or who choose not to be educated, or who choose to remain bloody minded and greedy, etc etc.

 

In #965 you wrote:

That was your careless reply to my outline of rule of law, as it exists in separate areas of jurisprudence in a federation, namely, in local, state and national spheres (...and in my estimation this rule of law might also in the future be extended into the international sphere).

So, I ask again, explain how the above description of rule of law is equivalent to "anarchy then? No ruler?"

 

Yes. And the public housing that enabled those low-wage families with one income (mom looked after the kids before childcare) to avoid poverty and homelessness was a wonderful feature of the welfare state in those days.

But as usual you have come up with the wrong analysis of what happened, after the stagflation of the 70's in the West, destroyed full employment and led to increasing pressure on government budgets.

Nice try...but no cigar (to be expected because you know nothing of macroeconomics, you only see microeconomics ie how the individual acts in the economy).

The rot set in when Keynesian full-employment in 1945-1970's (a period during which low wage families could get good public housing) was abandoned, and wrong-headed supply side theories that attempted to deal with stagflation that had its origins OUTSIDE the West. (ME oil embargo, and competition from low wage workers in post WW2 Asia).

And if there is low unemployment as in the three decades after the War - unemployment in that era was 2% in Oz, and Menzies almost lost an election in 1960 because the unemployment rate went up to (wait for it) 2.1%! (and youth underemployment was unheard of), and there were fewer mental-health issues associated with unemployment ...then public housing is a very good idea to house said low income families.

It all goes back to rising unemployment and increasing pressure on government budgets. So governments began to close psych hospitals, increasing street homelessness and drug taking.

Voluntary unemployed? There's your microeconomic mindset again. There was no unemployment in the era described above.

And as for the present, we will have to wait and see how many young lives -already working in low-pay insecure gig economy - are destroyed by unemployment post covid-19, as people with money become more concerned for their health and decide to travel less and spend less.

There was no visible homelessness in the immediate post war era. Now you are in danger of stumbling over homeless people in some inner cities.

That's why we need the state to step up once again...this time using its sovereign currency issuing capacity to issue debt free money, to fund public housing and full employment (since the necessary resources are available, which the government needs to purchase, to achieve these desirable outcomes.

 

the state can force the poor to get jobs so that top income brackets do not have to support them.

 

I was bending over backward to conceive of a condition in which Ted's credo (in red at the bottom of his posts, copied here) might be applicable:

Anarchy is not a solution, not a system, not a club, not a church, not even an ideology. It is the natural order of human life: Voluntary, consensual relationships among humans without the greatest problem in all of history- the hallucination, the dystopian ideal that some humans should have the right to violently control their fellow man.
Once you discover anarchism you cannot unsee the state for what it is: a fined tuned system of slavery.

A well-written passage, but delusional, because we are all instinctively (as well as egotistically) self-interested, which is why King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, the beginning of English law, in the 13th century.

Now education can be transformative.....but your self-styled "communist" soul is shouting "forced education", thus betraying your anti-communal Libertarian aspect eg, every family for itself, in your case...

Hence you keep banging on about "unwanted education". Anti-communal Libertarianism gone mad.

"Civilisation is a race between education and catastrophe".

Instructive words, Mr. Wells.

 

Re the bolded above: the "human condition" - including continuous warfare - manifests the psychosis resulting from unconscious conflict between instinct and the conscious knowledge-seeking, self-aware ego in the individual ...according to biologist Jeremy Griffith (of the WTM). I'll go with that for the time being, it explains a lot about observed human behaviour.

An understanding of the history of politics, economics, and religion, is "indoctrination"??

Not indoctrination, but do I detect a terror of revealing such knowledge, here.

Hmm. Mr. Griffith is obviously onto something.

 

No one can force the poor to get jobs, and it is the top income brackets who are supported by the state.

 

So it administers possession and use of the land under its sovereign authority.

 

In the absence of one single state there is anarchy. Because there are separate, individual, sovereign states. That is anarchy: no ruler.

 

It could. Or it could simply settle disputed over private landowners, like it does now. I don't agree that the state should be in the business of administering the administration and use of land. I'm not fond of communism.

 

1) It's a great idea when it is preserved for those who aren't abusing the privilege! It's incredibly expensive to build and maintain, and should therefore be strictly limited. I would manage it the same way public aged care is managed .... control of the occupant's income, with only enough cash provided via allowance to purchase necessities. The remainder would be placed in forced savings, for the purpose of eventually moving the occupants on from public housing. Don't like the Govt having that much control? Simple - don't seek public housing. Poor people in genuine need won't mind that control .. because they're not trying to spend money on drugs, gambling, fast food, $200 shoes, etc. In fact many will appreciate it, because it will help them move forward.

2) There are plenty of voluntarily unemployed/under-employed people, unfortunately. They make a career of it, and even insist their kids choose the same career. To pretend that this doesn't happen is either wilful delusion, or extreme naivety.

3) Young people who chose the extremely unstable (always was, always will be) gig economy as a 'career', have no one to blame but themselves - and their irresponsible parents for not insisting they seek something more secure. They were never going to know anything but financial insecurity, and they knew that going in. Their stupid parents can support them now, since they also knew their kids would be in dire straights at the slightest interruption to the economy. IOW, both parents and kids chose their current situation, in choosing the gig economy. Upshot, let them sort it out - none of our business. They made their choices freely.

4) People are homeless now DESPITE living in the richest nations, with the most welfare that has ever existed in the history of humanity. Homelessness is entirely a choice. You cannot make people un-choose it by throwing freebies at them. They will destroy and waste anything you give them, and ultimately end up right back where they started. They will never function as you expect them to function. They will never tolerate being answerable, nor stand for compromise, nor practice self-discipline .. all the things that make us tolerable and responsible members of our families and communities. Meantime, all those resources you waste on them could have gone to people who will use them for their intended purpose .. to rise above the inadvertent poverty they found themselves in due to circumstances beyond their control.

5) It doesn't matter what you provide, if people aren't willing to participate there's nothing you can do. You can't MAKE people accept 'full employment', if they don't want the jobs you're offering, or if they simply don't want to work. People are not robots. The only way you can expect full participation is via force .. and no one wants that. Though perhaps you do? If not, the very best you can hope for is to offer 'full employment' in lieu of welfare. If they don't take the jobs offered (wherever and whatever those jobs are .. no nation is rich enough to fete its citizens to the level of personal preference), they forfeit welfare. It's not force, but it will see much higher participation levels than simply offering jobs with no strings attached.

 

No, you are again just factually incorrect. Current governments do far more than simply settle disputes among private landowners, and you know it. They actively administer possession and use of land, as all governments do because that is one of government's most basic functions, and the alternative is feudalism.

Then you don't understand what a state is.

That's quite a non sequitur! So, you're saying that Hong Kong, which has been a shining example of the contrast between socialism and a private free market, and has consistently topped lists of the freest economies in the world, has been communist for the last 160 years??

Your claims get more and more fallacious and absurd with each post.

 

Except the feudal lords of those separate, individual, sovereign states. Anarchy is the rule of a thousand tyrants, which also neatly describes feudalism.

 

But the separate states of the USA are not sovereign states, they are united in a federation called the USA.

And the rule of law applies in the separate jurisprudences, all subject to the supreme jurisprudence (the SC in the US).

 

Correct. And no-one abused the privilege in the Keynesian 'welfare state' era of the 1945-1970's, because everyone had a job, because there was work for everyone. The wrong-headed reaction of economists to the stagflation of the 70's caused the rise in unemployment.

That's the whole issue. Unemployment destroys morale.

You are talking to someone else when you make that comment. As you know, I WANT the government to guarantee full employment (as government achieved 1945-1970's); and MMT explains how this can be achieved in our post Keynesian world, featuring international production processes (aka known as globalisation, despised by many because it creates unemployment in local regions eg the "rust belt" in the 1st world).

More micro economics from you. I preach personal responsibility as much as you, but personal responsibility is only half the story.

Please explain why none of this existed 1945 - 1970's.

All addressed above. I will be giving up on you soon, if you keep trotting out this sort of mindless garbage.
"It's the economy, stupid"...and guess what: individuals can't determine the macroeconomic conditions they must confront ...and if decent, secure jobs aren't available (which they aren't) , young people have no choice but to enter the gig economy. I repeat: there WAS NO YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT 1945-197O's.

......but with higher un/under-employment than ever existed 1945-70's.

Is that so, Mrs Thatcher.