06-03-2016, 09:08 AM
(06-03-2016, 01:36 AM)Galen Wrote: A government is not a business. Name a private sector business that can compel you to buy their product or service? I should be very surprise if you find one. Simply spending will not create wealth because the state has no way to determine what is truly valuable. This is the the most important lesson that you can learn from the writings of Mises and Rothbard.
Perhaps the most important delusion.
Of course the state has a way to determine what is valuable. It's what the people vote for. They express their values when they vote.
The private sector compels you to buy products because it corners markets. "Cartelization" is the natural tendency of the free-market, not a "mistake" which it committed in the late 19th and early 20th century. It has come roaring back since neo-liberal, libertarian economics assumed power in the USA and in many western-style democracies in the 1980s. We live now in a society dominated by cartels, and justified by the slogans of "free enterprise" that merely enable the cartels to dominate us. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are leaders in the movement in the USA to return control of our state to the people instead of these new-style cartels.
The private sector also compels people to obey the dictates of money and property. If people don't, they get hauled off to jail for stealing. But that means that money rules. He that has the gold, rules, is the libertarian version of the golden rule. I prefer the traditional version myself; the one upheld by all religions.