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Where Is Ron Paul?

Napoleon

Active Member
In a time when we face one of the greatest economic crises in living memory and big changes in government and foreign and domestic policy, what could Ron Paul have to say? What kind of legislation could he propose to ease the burden and solve our economic crisis? Where is Ron Paul and what pearls of wisdom is he offering us in our time of need? Why, introducing legislation "to authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk" and reasserting our right to contract tuberculosis, of course! LOL! What a maroon! :D
 

Makaveli

Homoioi
So long as the means of production remain in the hands of a few, true self-determination will be an illusion.

I didn't know that the economy determined whether I can do as I please or not.

The entirety of human society is an illusion we've created to separate ourselves from the beasts. If it is an illusion, it will remain so until pessimists everywhere start to do something about it.
 

Zephyr

Moved on
I didn't know that the economy determined whether I can do as I please or not.

The entirety of human society is an illusion we've created to separate ourselves from the beasts. If it is an illusion, it will remain so until pessimists everywhere start to do something about it.
When you are forced to accept a master to earn your next meal (and by extension, your survival), can you really call yourself free?

Also, I should clarify. By libertarianism I mean this modern American pro-business "hands-off" system of economics. I'm all for freedoms, it's just that private capitalism is just as much an enemy to economic freedom as state-run monopolies are.
 

Makaveli

Homoioi
When you are forced to accept a master to earn your next meal (and by extension, your survival), can you really call yourself free?

Also, I should clarify. By libertarianism I mean this modern American pro-business "hands-off" system of economics. I'm all for freedoms, it's just that private capitalism is just as much an enemy to economic freedom as state-run monopolies are.

No one is ever forced to do anything, you can enter and leave a job at your own whim. Doing work and accepting money isn't the same as being forced into slave labor for a master.

Then I agree with you, for the most part. I don't know the whole history of how civil freedoms got tied into economics, but here we are with that definition.
 

Zephyr

Moved on
No one is ever forced to do anything, you can enter and leave a job at your own whim. Doing work and accepting money isn't the same as being forced into slave labor for a master.

Then I agree with you, for the most part. I don't know the whole history of how civil freedoms got tied into economics, but here we are with that definition.
Of course, I can refuse to take a job, but then guess who starves to death? You can hardly call it a choice when the alternative is death. The only truly free markets are ones consisting of syndicates and workers' councils. Every man should be his sole master. Wage slavery is America's greatest threat to liberty.
 

Makaveli

Homoioi
Of course, I can refuse to take a job, but then guess who starves to death? You can hardly call it a choice when the alternative is death. The only truly free markets are ones consisting of syndicates and workers' councils. Every man should be his sole master. Wage slavery is America's greatest threat to liberty.

Well, how is the world supposed to function if there aren't businesses looking for workers, and workers looking for work? It's not like workers are powerless anymore, this isn't the 19th century: workers are able to unionize, and pressure business according to their own wants and needs.

As you put it, if you don't take a job, you'll starve. In many cases this may be true, but again, there is nothing stopping you from buying or leasing land and growing food on it. Unlikely scenario for this age, but still, an option.

From what I'm reading, you're essentially advocating worker-owned businesses where each individual worker owns a stake in the company, and is his or her own boss? There are businesses like that, but there will always be a power hierarchy with the workers at the bottom and the CEOs at the top. Unless there is some massive push by people to change the way the world runs, which I doubt will ever happen due to the inherent laziness of Man, then there wont be some utopian economic dream system.

Even if there are flaws, you still get to choose what cog you are in the machine.
 

Mathematician

Reason, and reason again
Yes, self-determination and freedom are insane. What an astute observation.

In what ways does contemporary libertarianism equate to freedom? Using this particular example of Ron Paul, he believes property rights are objective in nature and has voted down homosexual adoptions.

I don't think it's fair to say that someone who calls libertarianism insane is necessarily stating freedom and self-determination are insane.

Well, how is the world supposed to function if there aren't businesses looking for workers, and workers looking for work? It's not like workers are powerless anymore, this isn't the 19th century: workers are able to unionize, and pressure business according to their own wants and needs. The market oftentimes can't find an equilibrium. In fact, it rarely - if ever - does.

As you put it, if you don't take a job, you'll starve. In many cases this may be true, but again, there is nothing stopping you from buying or leasing land and growing food on it. Unlikely scenario for this age, but still, an option.
The concept of unemployment (jobless and without pay) is entirely ridiculous and only relies on a market mechanism to exist. Not all demand is fufilled. In fact, each individual probably has a thousand demands that could be satisfied slightly more by an additional hand. Likewise, each individual has a thousand different jobs he or she would be willing to meet.

Wage slavery is a very real "phenomena." However, it's different from chattel slavery (slightly) in that it's situational and not necessarily individual. Chomsky uses the example of a chattel slave being told he has two options: pick his master from a list of two hundred white masters, or scratch it out with the worst land.

When you get down to it, a landlord and a state aren't all that different.
 
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Makaveli

Homoioi
In what ways does contemporary libertarianism equate to freedom? Using this particular example of Ron Paul, he believes property rights are objective in nature and has voted down homosexual adoptions.

I don't think it's fair to say that someone who calls libertarianism insane is necessarily stating freedom and self-determination are insane.

Ron Paul is shackled by his own quasi-morality and traditionalism, and modern Libertarianism is just capitalism plus laissez-faire instead of a focus on individual liberty like it used to be. Ron Paul is a "big L" libertarian, and Zephyr seemed to be slandering all of libertarianism as insane. Perhaps not fair.

The concept of unemployment (jobless and without pay) is entirely ridiculous and only relies on a market mechanism to exist. Not all demand is fufilled. In fact, each individual probably has a thousand demands that could be satisfied slightly more by an additional hand. Likewise, each individual has a thousand different jobs he or she would be willing to meet.

Wage slavery is a very real "phenomena." However, it's different from chattel slavery (slightly) in that it's situational and not necessarily individual. Chomsky uses the example of a chattel slave being told he has two options: pick his master from a list of two hundred white masters, or scratch it out with the worst land.

When you get down to it, a landlord and a state aren't all that different.

What I'm getting from you right now is that wages and the current economic model equal some form of slavery? Am I comprehending this correctly? Perhaps you are both correct and I am just running in a circle attempting to argue. :shrug: Nevertheless, I still believe that equating the dominant economic model with slavery is an inequitable comparison to chattel slavery.
 
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