tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419359887373244512.post1189655222700162055..comments2023-06-01T14:41:50.393+01:00Comments on Downed Robin: Standing in rags, but standing on his feetAndrew Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14541926954531770980noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419359887373244512.post-1255170179402723092014-04-21T08:43:14.738+01:002014-04-21T08:43:14.738+01:00Engaging with a few historical facts - e.g. that a...Engaging with a few historical facts - e.g. that actually existing capitalism owes at least something to coercion, exploitation and legalised theft - is about as un-crazy as right libertarianism gets. Better, at least, than basing your plan for Utopia on the heroic expoits fictional characters dreamed up in an Ayn Rand fairytale.<br /><br />The crazy comes when the FOTL people take the valid observation that <i>some</i> laws and social structures have been cobbled together by the powerful to bamboozle and cheat the powerless and stretch it to the batshit conclusion that all laws, rules and obligations are a form of opression and therefore I, personally, should be exempt from taxes, paying my mortgage, parking fines, whatever.<br /><br />Talking of taking an argument to its extreme, I'm not sure that there was ever a simple, binary choice between penury versus industrial development, although I can see how such a simplification might be used as a post hoc justification for a land-grab.Andrew Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14541926954531770980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4419359887373244512.post-76284705385560317942014-04-20T17:32:58.551+01:002014-04-20T17:32:58.551+01:00I'm not 100% convinced that a Freemen On The L...I'm not 100% convinced that a Freemen On The Land Paulite site is any less crazy when it comes to the merits of universal agrarian penury versus industrial development, but YMMV.john bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13784096180652522939noreply@blogger.com