Why Do You Decide?

It truly is a strange stand in politics (and in general) to expect that everyone can agree on something. It is rarely so. Two persons who buy the same toothbrush could perhaps agree that the particular kind of toothbrush is the toothbrush of choice, but perhaps their reasons for it are completely different. One was going for the price, the other for the color. One was thinking about the design of the toothbrush, the other just wanted a blue rubber handle.

The same applies for everything else. Lets say two people want to live in a neighborhood guarded by trained security guards. Does that mean they both want the State's Police force to stand the guard? No. Do they request protection from the same security firm? Maybe and maybe not, and perhaps or perhaps not for the same reasons.

It would be safer to assume that no-one agrees on anything rather than assume that some people agree on something for the same reasons. Indeed, no-one can agree on anything for completely the same reasons. We are individuals, all with our own preferences, budget, taste and whims. No-one can solve our conflicts and expect everyone to be satisfied. This is why we need a free market - in everything! A free market where everyone will simply purchase (or not) what they want, and make producers of services and products compete for our different tastes and preferences.

And for this reason and many others, the State must be abolished. Because we don't agree on the purpose and role of this monopoly industry.

Insane Welfare

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Perhaps that's something to keep in mind the next time we hear a call for more welfare spending.

Neatly said and something to actually keep in mind.

How Collectivism still survives

A nice little observation by Rothbard:

I do not believe it an accident that Karl Marx is considered one of the great hermeneuticians. This century has seen a series of devastating setbacks to Marxism, to its pretensions to "scientific truth," and to its theoretical propositions as well as to its empirical assertions and predictions. If Marxism has been riddled both in theory and in practice, then what can Marxian cultists fall back on? It seems to me that hermeneutics fits very well into an era that we might, following a Marxian gambit about capitalism, call "late Marxism" or Marxism-in-decline. Marxism is not true and is not science, but so what? The hermeneuticians tell us that nothing is objectively true, and therefore that all views and propositions are subjective, relative to the whims and feelings of each individual.

In short, Marxists and other opponents of the successful, wealthy societies in the world cannot resort to reason and logic anymore. They are forced to rely on a kind of "philosophy" that denies truth, facts, correct, wrong, true and false. They must rely on a state of mind that refuses to be wrong - and right! For them, "A" is not necessarily "A" if someone claims that "A" is "B".

I wonder if me claiming I have lots of money actually makes it be so, or if objective, physical reality is still among us somewhere?