Sunday, April 20, 2014

On Monopoly and the Scott Walker Recall Election

Written on June 5th, 2012
Edited in April 2014



   I posted the following in response to someone who said "Anyone who votes for Walker is on the wrong side of history.":

   This whole system is on the wrong side of history.

   People who like Walker should be able to choose to remain governed by Walker, people who like Barrett should be able to choose to be governed by Barrett, and people who like neither - i.e., probably everyone in this discussion - should be able to choose to be governed by someone else.

   Basic government services - that is, the provision of security, defense, protection, and insurance of person and property against those who would harm them and their utility - are commercial markets, just like health care, mail delivery, cell phones, or fried chicken.

   But KFC doesn't have to threaten to imprison people for not eating their chicken in order to stay at the top of the market. Similarly, you don't see Verizon, Samsung, and T-Mobile carving up plots of land, erecting border fences, and guarding borders with guns should their competitors try to break into their claimed consumer base. So why should government be any different?

   Any decent government - just like any decent company - will rise to the top fairly and naturally. Perfect consumer information and total competition in all industries and markets - including government services - will lead to the optimal outcome for all people, without sacrificing any liberty or freedom of choice in the process.

   This system has been called catallaxy (spontaneous order), agorism, polyarchism, functionally-overlapping-territorial-jurisdiction, national personal autonomy, and market anarchy. The idea of multiple competing governments has decades of testimony from libertarians and socialists alike.

   And it's not just a theoretical idea posited by suspected racists; it's a way of life that exists all around us in various forms, and a distilled, constrained, compromised form of it exists in the modern political institutions.

   Proponents of democracy - self-described Democrats and Republicans alike - claim to want more choice in political matters. Well, what system offers more political choices than total competition amongst governments?

   The legal basis for our corporate government goes way deeper than bank bailouts and the personal corruption of our politicians. So deep, in fact, that we may have to occasionally turn to people who understand the intricacies of the Constitution to undo the damage which we have recently seen.

   Google Lysander Spooner, Gustave de Molinari, Paul Emile de Puydt, Otto Bauer, and Roderick Long.




For more entries on elections and campaign finance, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-voting-is-not-necessarily-evil.html

For more entries on unions and collective bargaining, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/04/social-policies-for-2012-us-house.html

For more entries on Wisconsin politics, please visit:

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