I've noticed a common trend in oppositionto volutnaryism

[tnu]

This is something that's been bugging me. themost common argumentI see from left-anarchists in regards to voluntaryism is their favorite rebuttal that if your alternative to a situation is to starve or be homeless thenit'snot really a voluntary situation. I honestly dont' know how to respond to this and it's bothering me immensely.

[Dallas Wildman]

This is an attempt to use an extreme scenario as an appeal to fear.  While such a scenario is possible in a free market, it is an extremely unlikely scenario.  On the flip side we can easily look back in history and show how governments have repeatedly caused starvation, all for political gains of specific actors nonetheless.

[MrBogosity]

In order to have a chance at success there has to be a risk of failure. Statists (of whom so-called "left-anarchists" are some) don't want to face that possibility; they want guarantees. I always say, if you want guarantees, you got yourself born into the wrong universe.

[Travis Retriever]

This is an attempt to use an extreme scenario as an appeal to fear.  While such a scenario is possible in a free market, it is an extremely unlikely scenario.  On the flip side we can easily look back in history and show how governments have repeatedly caused starvation, all for political gains of specific actors nonetheless.

Well all three of you have earned a cluon from me for this.
And yeah, funny how the so called 'left anarchists' forget that it was the free market that eliminated hunger for the first time in world history, the only exception (that's not really an exception) being the government created Great Depression.  So who's really going to have people "work or starve" here?

[dallen68]

Well all three of you have earned a cluon from me for this.
And yeah, funny how the so called 'left anarchists' forget that it was the free market that eliminated hunger for the first time in world history, the only exception (that's not really an exception) being the government created Great Depression.  So who's really going to have people "work or starve" here?

The "work or starve" principle comes from the Bible (2 Thess. 3:10), so it's kinda hard to put that on Libertarians. Also, those that are poor/jobless/hungry often end up better off if there isn't a state agency/ laws about what you can and cannot give.

Remember some time ago when we were discussing the work house diet? One of the things I discovered was that the Poor Act prohibited giving aid to the indigent outside of that system. Which means that when Scrooge was approached by the do-gooders (for lack of a better term), they were asking him to break the law; and apparently it wasn't even one of those "technically illegal bullshit laws" that you can brush away without a thought - the government was deadly serious about it.

[MrBogosity]

So who's really going to have people "work or starve" here?

Even if the free market is "work or starve," as we've seen socialist control of the economy is "work AND starve!"

[MrBogosity]

Remember some time ago when we were discussing the work house diet? One of the things I discovered was that the Poor Act prohibited giving aid to the indigent outside of that system. Which means that when Scrooge was approached by the do-gooders (for lack of a better term), they were asking him to break the law; and apparently it wasn't even one of those "technically illegal bullshit laws" that you can brush away without a thought - the government was deadly serious about it.

I think that only applied to the poor who chose to work in the workhouses. They were raising money for those who refused to.

[dallen68]

I think that only applied to the poor who chose to work in the workhouses. They were raising money for those who refused to.

The way I read the bill, it applied to anyone that lived in an area that was served by a workhouse; so London for sure. Evidently, it wasn't really enforced in the north until much later, and Scotland had its own system. Then again, I may have misinterpreted it.

[MrBogosity]

The way I read the bill, it applied to anyone that lived in an area that was served by a workhouse; so London for sure. Evidently, it wasn't really enforced in the north until much later, and Scotland had its own system. Then again, I may have misinterpreted it.

See if you can dig it up and send it to me. If you're right, I'll put it in the second edition of my book.

[dallen68]

See if you can dig it up and send it to me. If you're right, I'll put it in the second edition of my book.

Message sent. Let me know if you don't get it, because it didn't tell me whether or not it was.

[MrBogosity]

Message sent. Let me know if you don't get it, because it didn't tell me whether or not it was.

I got it. Thanks!

[dallen68]

I got it. Thanks!

Good.

Some other points of interest I discovered when looking that up for you:

- Up until the mid 1840's, jail, in and of itself, was not considered a punishment. It was a place to be held until a court could assign a punishment.

- Until the 1850's, jails were private, for profit businesses. (Although under exclusive contract with the gov't-much like the IRS, and Post Office)

- Children that were held in a debtor's prison/workhouse were guaranteed a certain amount of schooling; children of the working class outside of that system were not. That quite possibly makes the Poor Act Amendment the unintended originator of the State School.

- People with a certain amount of means could, and did, operate businesses from the prisons and workhouses.

[bp_28]

[yt]nGd1aFE5wTg[/yt]

This is a link to the David Pakman show's video about the privatization of water. The title itself contradicts what we would like to see in terms of privatization. The title is "Privatizing Water:  Nestle trying to 'Buy' Oregon's Public Water..."
Wanted to shed light on this news, and wondered if someone could shed some light on other instances of privatization

[MrBogosity]

[yt]nGd1aFE5wTg[/yt]

This is a link to the David Pakman show's video about the privatization of water. The title itself contradicts what we would like to see in terms of privatization. The title is "Privatizing Water:  Nestle trying to 'Buy' Oregon's Public Water..."
Wanted to shed light on this news, and wondered if someone could shed some light on other instances of privatization

Fixed embed. To get that to work, take just the video ID and put it between the yt tags.

[bp_28]

[yt]ifyEPRvj2YI[/yt]

This video basically takes Stefan Molyneux's reaction to what Zeitgeist said and took that as a defeat for Molyneux! What an idiot. Anyway, see for yourself. Peter Joseph claims that in a free market, there would and could be institutionalized violence. Not only does institutionalized violence not qualify as valid in the free market, but the free market undermines the ability of institutionalized violence to persist. For example, during slavery, the Underground Railroad, which was blazed by Harriet Tubman, helped many people to become free without being sold as slaves to the Union Army through forced conscription. I know Molyneux is a somewhat unreliable guy, but this video is pathetic.