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[LordBucket]

I have a real question for Me'Lord Bucket. Given that what you say is true in the context of this question so that the laws only serve to hide the allocation of power. Do they not also make the use of such power less blatant?

...aren't those the same thing?

Blatant:

"adjective
1. brazenly obvious; flagrant: a blatant error in simple addition; a blatant lie.
2. offensively noisy or loud; clamorous: blatant radios.
3. tastelessly conspicuous: the blatant colors of the dress."

Hiding the allocation of power and making it less blatant are the same thing. Why is  making it less obvious a desireable goal?

IE: The difference between economic slavery and physical slavery. The difference being in anti slave laws. And yet, although they may come to practically the same effect, is one not better in that it offers a higher chance of leaving the wretched state of slavery?

Your thought process is unclear to me. You appear to be comparing economic slavery and physical slavery...then implying that by accepting economic slavery we escape slavery.

I don't understand.

If you want to equate the argument opposing mine with "economic slavery,"well, that's further than I would probably would have gone in this particularconversation, but I won't disagree with you. But if you're saying that economic slavery is preferable to physical slavery...ok...but wouldn't not being enslaved at all be even better?

anti slave laws

If a society bases itself off the premise that everyone has only equal say in their lives, it's possible that slavery, be it physical or economic, might result from that.

But if a society bases itself off the premise that individual freedom is more important than group consensus...slavery at all is antithetical to that.

[Leafsnail]

But if a society bases itself off the premise that individual freedom is more important than group consensus...slavery at all is antithetical to that.

And you'd try to prevent it by...?

I mean, the arguments in your previous posts seem to imply you think enforcing any law is the "majority" unfairly influencing the minority.

[ChairmanPoo]

You know, back at the unemployment thread,  Bucket here defended the "Degrowth" ideologies. Now he seems to be advocating corporate ultracapitalism. I don't know if he is trolling, or that his actual answer to a question he failed to address in the other thread ("what will all the unemployed people do?") is something on the lines of "They should do the right thing and f*ing starve!"

[LordBucket]

Now for the obvious question : well, those who are in power sure are in power but my response is to give some more (and some less) power to the state, namely getting more direct democracy, and more taxes on the extremely wealthy, as well as some rule for the financial system that make accumulation of huge wealth harder.

That wasn't a question.

how do you make education and healthcare
accessible to all without an extensive government?

That depends on what your goals are. I'm not sure why you think government is necessary for these to occur. Let's look at them both:

education

What is necessary to make education available?

You need:

 * People to teach
 * People to learn
 * A place for them to get together

With those three things, education is possible. You'll note that none of those three require any kind of national government. There are plenty of alternatives. Local communities can create local schools taught by volunteers. People can homeschool. People can go to private schools. All of these can coexist, and people can choose for themselves what they'd like to do. Libertarian methods don't make education suddenly go away, they're simply incompatible with the idea of forcefully taking money away from people in in the form of taxes in order to fund education for other people's children and then requiring those children to participate in that education under threat of parental fines and imprisonment. If you don't send your children to school in this country, the government might fine or imprison you, and in some cases take your children away.

Maybe you're comfortable having money forcefully taken from you so that other people can decide how your children will be educated under threat of fines and imprisonment you if you don't like it.

Some of us aren't.

healthcare

they are both accessible to all in Belgium, in reasonable quality

It's interesting that you ask about healthcare, because it provides an airly good example for those of us here in the US. I've never been to Belgium, but according to various sites, Belgium appears to have a psuedo-nationalized healthcare system.

From above links:

In Belgium, health insurance is mandatory. Basic cover is provided by the national social security system

Contributions are paid by both employers and employees and they amount to 7.35 % of each person’s gross salary. The employee must pay 3.55 % directly from their wages and employers must pay the remaining 3.8 %.

People have to pay a certain amount of their medical bill themselves and they usually pay fees directly to their doctor or the hospital. They must submit their receipts for reimbursement and the money is then paid directly into the claimant’s bank account.

Most Belgians take out supplementary health insurance to cover the portion of their bill, which is not reimbursed.

Now, I suspect that a lot of americans would read this and react unfavorably to it. We don't have a national healthcare system here and having 7% taken from your paycheck for the privilage of paying cash for medical treatment just doesn't sound that great to me. Again, I'm just reading about this, I've never been to Belgium, but for the american audience...ask yourselves if the above sounds like something you'd want to sign up for.

In any case, to answer the question...we don't have national health care here in the US, and obviously people still get medical attention. Just because these functions can be provided via coercive national programs doesn't mean that those programs are the only way to provide them.

Additionally, I don't see why making health insurance "mandatory" is perceived as a good thing. To me choice seems like a good thing. There's nothing stopping insurance from existing in a libertarian society. People would still be able to buy it if they wanted it. It simply wouldn't be mandated under penalty of punishment, and nobody would have money forcefully taken from their paychecks.

[ChairmanPoo]

Nationalized health care systems are more efficient than social security based systems are more efficient than free market healthcare systems

[Leafsnail]

People would still be able to buy it if they wanted it. It simply wouldn't be mandated under penalty of punishment, and nobody would have money forcefully taken from their paychecks.

And of course you're intentionally skipping "And people who suffer from serious genetic diseases or have lower paychecks would get no healthcare at all".

[scriver]

"Freedom of the Individual" is an illusion. There is hardly any choice we can make that doesn't take away the freedom of choice from others. If you want to have to privilege to completely decide your own life and have all options, you're inevitably going to influence other people's lives and take away their options. Because, you know, we're all in one and the same society together and everything we do have consequences for others.

[Virodhi]

"Freedom of the Individual" is an illusion. There is hardly any choice we can make that doesn't take away the freedom of choice from others. If you want to have to privilege to completely decide your own life and have all options, you're inevitably going to influence other people's lives and take away their options. Because, you know, we're all in one and the same society together and everything we do have consequences for others.

Word. When did "solidarity" become a four-letter word, as applied to the above?

Actually, that's something I've always wondered about libertarians and objectivists both. And I swear I am not shit-stirring here; I'm genuinely curious, because my understanding of the philosophies always end in "Out of cheese error. Please reboot universe." ANYWAY. If the basic idea is that everything works out for the best if you live only for yourself, then what is the point of having a society on the national scale?

[Nivim]

 What I've read, in this thread, seems to boil down to trying to compare and contrast

The majority exercises their power on the minority (in range).

and

The individual exercises their power on everyone else (in range).

, for the purposes of figuring out which one leads to more nastiness. Sadly, the only useful response I can come up with to this is; "it's all in the details". Both philosophies are obviously flawed and their direct applications rife with horrible corruptions and depravity (more precisely, inefficiency and waste), but when would it ever be possible to implement a direct application? The physical constraints of the time will determine exactly how nasty each one is, and taking an average of all possibilites isn't feasible (which looks like what posters have been trying to do, with healthcare, education, and other examples), so instead the system should be based on first determining whether itself is the right thing for the situation.
 I can't think of any government that follows this crateria. Why would anyone choose to espouse just one?

Predit: That last is technically a question for libertarians.

[LordBucket]

If the basic idea is that everything works out for the best if you live only for yourself, then what is the point of having a society on the national scale?

Your premise is flawed. The "if" part of your question isn't an accurate representation of the philosophy I am espousing. Society is individuals interacting with each other. It is possible to interact with others in mutually acceptable ways. I am not suggesting eliminating social interaction. I am not suggesting living only for yourself. I am suggesting a policy of social interaction by choice rather than coercion. Whether individuals choose to live "for themselves" or not is a matter for them to decide, not the state.

Why would anyone choose to espouse just one?

The literal answer to your question would be that the individuals you're referring to probably don't perceive their preferred philosophy in the manner you're describing, but they do perceive the philosophy they're not espousing in the manner you're describing.

Predit: That last is technically a question for libertarians.

The above answer applies to both libertarians and non-libertarians espousing their beliefs, but to answer it from the libertarian side...like Virodhi above your premise is flawed:

The individual exercises their power on everyone else (in range).

Counterexample: Bob has an apple and wants an orange. Joe has an orange and wants an apple. They discuss their situation, and willingly choose to exchange fruit. Each now has what they wanted as the result of a non-coercive exchange of their own choosing. Neither has excercised power over the other.

Why you would interpret the philosophy of "holding individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society" as "individuals exercising their power on everyone else" is unclear to me.

[Nivim]

The individual exercises their power on everyone else (in range).[2]

Counterexample: Bob has an apple and wants an orange. Joe has an orange and wants an apple. They discuss their situation, and willingly choose to exchange fruit. Each now has what they wanted as the result of a non-coercive exchange of their own choosing. Neither has excercised power over the other.

Why you would interpret the philosophy of "holding individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society"[1] as "individuals exercising their power on everyone else" is unclear to me.

For the purpose of making points, I don't see any contradiction between any of these stated situations or generalizations (as long as you're just assuming the "in range" part for the sake of brevity). Bob and Joe excercised their power to make a trade; that says very little about the power itself, nor does it cover an arbitrarily large number of other situations the other quotes involve refer to. The relationship between [1] and [2] is more complicated; one describing an opinion that may give lead to various systems while the other describes one such system. I made the derivation for the sake of getting away from the vagueness and ephemeral nature inherent in "basic moral principle of society", and reconsiling other definitions of "libertarianism".
 Is there another derivation you would prefer?: [

Edit: Looking back over my post, the emotion with which I wrote it is completely absent; foggy, ant-like, and near the end confused and worried.

[LordBucket]

nor does it cover an arbitrarily large number of
other situations the other quotes involve refer to.

It doesn't need to. I don't dispute that coercive exchanges can occur. The point is that non-coercive exchanges can occur. I assert that it is possible for a society to exist based on voluntary rather than coercive exchanges. I further assert that phenomenon such as eminent domain and collection of taxes under pain of fine or imprisonment represent coercive exchanges.

I made the derivation for the sake of getting away from the vagueness
and ephemeral nature inherent in "basic moral principle of society"

Agreed the word "moral" is ambiguous. Nevertheless I find your interpretive leap from [1] to [2] to be unreasonable.

Is there another derivation you would prefer?

Perhaps a rephrasing of [1] would be helpful. How about, within the given context:

"Libertarianism is the philosophical view that freedom of choice of the individual is the highest possible value."

The individual exercises their power on everyone else

Excercising power on others is, of itself, not dissonant with the above provided they are agreeable to it. The "others" being acted upon are also individuals, and their choice is also of value. Successful excercise of power upon an individual who wishes to not be acted upon represents a loss of value.

EDIT:
Please read this post also before responding to this one. It might be more clear.

[Vector]

Since everyone here seems to think force exerted in various ways is the only way community can possibly hang together, I'll just suggest "polity" and leave.

(In the sense of Aristotle, of course)

[LordBucket]

I assert that it is possible for a society to exist based on voluntary rather than coercive exchanges.

everyone here seems to think force exerted in various ways is the only way community can possibly hang together

Didn't read before posting?

[Vector]

Skimmed.