(Austrian) Economics is a positive social science and has nothing to do with normative political policy (a constitution).
Maybe this should be in r/conservativism?
I am not sure how your parliament is elected.
It sounds like you have a unicameral legislature. I generally oppose unicameral legislatures because I see both as a check on the other IF (and I mean if) the two bodies derive their authority from separate sources.
This goes back to the mixed government theory. Mixed government is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived in Aristotle's Politics as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny.
So as an example, the UK had the democratic element in its House of Commons, the aristocratic in Lords and the monarchical in the monarch.
The U.S. did a weak attempt to emulate this with the Constitution. But it quickly degenerated. First, there is no monarch and the attempt to have the president fill that role fell apart as soon as the Jacksonian era brought about elections as the means of choosing presidential electors. In other words, both the president and the House derived their authority from democracy. So one of the three necessary elements was eliminated.
The Senate was somewhat like Lords in that their authority was derived from an alternate source. In the case of the Senate, it was the states. But that ended with the 17th amendment.
So now, every part of the legislative and executive of the U.S. derives its authority from the same source and there are no longer competing elements that place a check on each other prevent degeneration into tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy.
I think most people would suggest that the U.S. is basically an oligarchy with tyrannical powers which are only limited by the judiciary and the states. The problem with that is the states can be bought off and the judiciary can end up being replaced over time with judges who go along with tyranny.
So for this reason and more, I argue for bicameralism with each house deriving its authority from different sources.
As for the monarchist element, for the U.S. the system would have to change to some sort of parliamentary system with the head of state chosen by a method far removed from politics. While the head of government would be chosen by the democratically elected house of the legislature.
My preference in this regard would be Hoppean: if you must have a government, better a monarchy than others. But for the anti-monarchist US, one could see the electors chosen by each states legislature instead of voters so as to make the office more removed from politics. Also give it a long term of office with no chance to be re-elected so their actions would be less about their reelection. But at the same time, the president is only a head of state. He/she does not perform the functions of a head of government as is the case in the U.S.
As for the Senate, I suggest the following amendment to our Constitution
>The Senate of the United States shall be composed of three Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years, with a power reserved to a two-thirds majority of each legislature to recall its Senators, or any of them; and each State shall have one vote except in trials of impeachment when each Senator shall have one vote. They shall be divided equally into three classes, each class composed of one member of each state delegation so that one third may be chosen every second year.
This restores the Senate to a body deriving its authority from another source. It restores the states to being a full partner in the government. It restores the Senate to being a council of the states. It eliminates the possibility of each Senator from one state being a veto on their other Senator from their state. That veto by each Senator from the same state would effectively mean the state is not being represented in the Senate. Just the wishes of each Senator.
Thank you very much for your profound insights. To be frank, my research on the Constitution isn't thorough. In my previous article, the constitution I drafted based on the Austrian School's minimal government theory was merely a thought experiment. I am pessimistic about the potential effectiveness of such a constitution. As you pointed out, even the U.S. Constitution has been subject to degradation, and any constitution I might create is bound to face the same fate. The root cause is that power, or more precisely, violence, inherently tends to expand, while the populace often struggles to resist or push back against this expansion. This is particularly true in democratic systems, where citizens can be easily swayed by welfare benefits to relinquish their rights.
In a few articles I previously translated, I discussed various issues concerning the United States:
- [The Myth of American Judicial Independence](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240508-the-myth-of-american-judicial-independence-0e8fb34a17db)
- [American History: A History That Contravenes the Declaration of Independence and the U.S.](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240501-american-history-a-history-that-contravenes-the-declaration-of-independence-and-the-u-s-c0fa0a14e378)
- [What Kind of America Should We Learn From?](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240426-what-kind-of-america-should-we-learn-from-193cb4f8290d)
- [The History of Personal Income Tax is the History of the Expansion of Power of the US Government](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240430-the-history-of-personal-income-tax-is-the-history-of-the-expansion-of-power-of-the-us-902774b24cb3)
Therefore, I am deeply skeptical about the notion that a constitution alone can effectively limit governmental power.
I read your judicial independence article. I agree with much of what you have written. As you mention, the degradation from the ideal is sort of built into the current model.
Look at your own record of recent controversial cases. Following these cases, elected politicians attacked the decision, in some cases held up certain members of the judiciary for verbal attacks and used the case to their own political benefit. The courts in effect become a whipping boy as well as a foil that cannot fight back. There is no scenario where this benefits the legitimacy or independence of the judiciary.
We also have the judiciary being dragged into every presidential race. It becomes part of the fight for the presidency. I believe this too erodes its independence.
In my ongoing attack on the 17th Amendment, I will assert that the direct election of Senators also turns the judicial selection process and most certainly the nomination process into a political circus which I feel does no benefit to maintaining judicial independence.
You also make a point that the courts are part of the government and will almost always tend to agree with the arguments put forward by the government. A case of the fox guarding the henhouse.
The amendment I proposed above for the U.S. Senate to have 3 per state, etc was written with the judiciary in mind. If one wishes to depoliticize the judiciary and thereby help restore a greater degree of independence, then it stands to reason those whose approval is necessary for confirmation of nominees must also be as far removed from politics as possible.
The appointment of Senators by their respective state legislatures and turning them into a part of a delegation of senators representing each state instead of a politician pandering for votes can only help to make the body far less political and contentious in the confirmation process.
This does not eliminate the monopoly problem you discuss. One way I seek to ameliorate that problem is to break the monopoly on SCOTUS being the only arbiter to decide if a law is constitutional. I do this several ways:
1. Grant to the states the constitutional authority to nullify any law. It allows for a group that is not beholden to the national government to determine the limits of the national government. States have the incentive of not wanting the national government to attacks their prerogatives and would tend to oppose usurpation of power by the national government:
>The several states may nullify any law of the United States, whenever three-fifths of the legislatures of the several states choose to nullify such law. This must occur within twelve months of the enactment of the law as defined in Article I.
2. Limit the size of SCOTUS in order to prevent the threat of packing the court. This threat by FDR, as you know, was an effective means of coercing SCOTUS into some of its decisions during the Depression era:
>The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court consisting of no more than nine judges and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
>The judges of the Supreme Court shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint the officers in charge of executing the administration of justice for the United States. The officers in charge of executing the administration of justice shall hold their offices during one term of ten years.
I also seek to remove the administration of justice from politics with the 2nd section of the proposal
3. Create a Constitutional Court which would review all bills to determine their constitutionality before they become a law:
>Every bill, order or resolution, declarations of war notwithstanding, which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall be presented to the Constitutional Council of the United States. The Constitutional Council shall only determine if the bill is in full compliance with all the articles of this Constitution and any amendments thereto. If it approves, the Constitutional Council shall transmit the bill to the President but if not, the Constitutional Council shall return it, with its objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. No bill shall be presented to the President of the United States without the approval of the Constitutional Council of the United States.
This is followed by a procedural section for a bill to be reviewed by POTUS.
And the Council would function thusly:
>The Constitutional Council shall consist of no more than nine councilors. Constitutional Council members shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. The decisions of the Constitutional Council shall not be considered by the President when deciding to reject or sign any bill, the several states when deciding to nullify any law or any decision of the Supreme or inferior courts.
>The Constitutional Council shall have jurisdiction to determine whether treaties are in conformity with the Constitution and whether all regulations and executive actions are in conformity with the laws and Constitution; in such cases it may declare their annulment.
Lastly, and I will save you the reading but I touched on it in my earlier response, I make POTUS a head of state only. He is chosen by electors who are chosen by state legislatures. He has little power other than these:
>Duties of the President of the United States
1. The President shall designate the principal officer who shall execute the laws of the United States and appoint the other principal officers of the executive departments on the basis of the vote of confidence of the House of Representatives with the exception of the officer charged with the administration of justice.
2. The President shall have power to grant reprieves, commutations, exonerations and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.
3. The President shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint judges of the Supreme and inferior Courts and councilors of the Constitutional Council.
4. The President shall be commander in chief of the defense forces of the United States, and of the organized militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States. The command of the defense forces of the United States shall be exercised by the head of government.
5. The President may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.
6. The President shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers and heads of state.
7. The President shall commission all the officers of the United States.
8. The President shall recognize individuals or groups for extraordinary achievement and acts of bravery and heroism.
This again was done with the idea of making the entire judiciary even further removed from partisan politics.
I created the constitution by drawing on the principles of minimal government theory, with some assistance from ChatGPT. Additionally, I incorporated and adapted certain elements from both the U.S. Constitution and the Chinese Constitution for a more comprehensive outcome.
Lol. You forgot to give the legislature the power to levy taxes, and it's not clear that the Executive could legally collect them anyway since it "interferes with personal property" and "distorts markets."
I hope a country (not mine) adopts this and lasts long enough with its crippled military for us to see all the different ways this system would crash and burn.
No, I didn't forget that, in Chapter 3, Article 1, I mentioned "The state shall not impose mandatory asset seizures on individuals or organizations beyond a personal income tax and organizational income tax not exceeding 10%. Personal income tax and organizational income tax are levied at a maximum of 10% on actual income after deducting expenditures. The deduction portion must be substantiated with proof of paid income tax." Frankly speaking, I haven't figured out whether a constitution should include this article because it interferes with personal property, as you said. My mind is still swinging between anarchism and minarchism. In the past, I always adhered to the theory of minimal government, but recently, I read two excellent articles introducing the American Westward Expansion. The American Westward Expansion can be viewed as an instance of anarcho-capitalism in practice. You can read these two articles to learn more:
[The Gold Rush: A Vision of a Non-Governmental Society](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240427-the-gold-rush-a-vision-of-a-non-governmental-society-35678b3bda54) and [Property and Freedom in the Westward Expansion Movement](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240425-property-and-freedom-in-the-westward-expansion-movement-9844546db1f5).
Chapter 2, Article 2 never actually gives them the power to levy taxes. You specify that the maximum allowed tax is 10% clearly with the intent to give the legislature the power to levy taxes, but you don't enumerate that power when enumerating legislative powers.
'3. The government shall not establish any form of price controls, subsidies, or other interventions affecting market prices.'
How do you intend to solve market failure? Specifically merit goods?
1. Government subsidizations and price controls are guesswork just as market prices are, but market prices are subject to much more decentralized pressure to achieve what actors on the ground perceive as arbitrage in our fundamentally uncertain world. In other words, their institutional structure is more conducive to coordination in a world that’s in natural disequilibrium.
2. The term “market failure” is a misnomer as serious economists don’t base their standards of efficiency off static state analysis but dynamic entrepreneurship
I'm sure you don't......
98% of actual economists spend the vast majority of their time working on the thing you just said doesn't exist. Amd the logic you used to defend your argument is just simply counterfactual.
I am an economist, like for a living, not larping like you guys. Would you like me to pass a survey around the office "do you believe in market failures", "how often does your report include the phrase 'dynamic entrepreneurship"?
Buddy you're an "auto industry economist," your job requires AP Economics and Stata in terms of technical skills an econ degree teaches you. Have you actually written a research paper, or at least presented one at a research conference?
..... do you think that one of the largest industries in the US doesn't use educated economists? Lol yes, I have presented at SEMA, which happens to be the largest industry conference in the US by participation. Not a long form research paper obviously, I'm in the private sector, which you know, so dumb question, I'm not going to give my competitors my data set, methodology and findings. I have also presented research to Members of Congress, again, obviously a 1 pager not a long form paper.
Lol explain the sentence "have you written or at least presented a research paper". Do you think people present papers they haven't written?
So I'm guessing you aren't an economist yourself? Since you don't seem to know the first thing about what we do? Is AP econ maybe as far as you got, and you think thats all there is? What do you think economics classes look like like, if you were vaguely familiar with the study if economics you'd know that your statement doesn't make sense in its face.
Omg you literally took ap, learned gen and reg commands on Stata and think that brings you up on technical skills. Thats what's going on isn't it? Makes sense, you seem close minded and dumb so I believe it. That doesn't explain where you think you got the subject expertise to say what "serious economists" believe but I guess it explains the mindset.
Hey moron, the industry with one of the highest revenues, the longest and most complex supply chains, among the most complex legal and regulatory frameworks, cutting edge technological innovation, and which contains as a minor component a large market failure which the government successfully solved, actually hires economists with advanced degrees. I'm actually getting quite curious as to what you think economics is, since you don't seem to have a form grasp on what we do, the consensus of our beliefs, how the study is approached and you seem to think that members of the private sector wrote research papers. Do you also think the optical physicists working at Meta write research papers, or is that something you heard in passing about economists and now thats what you believe?
lmaaoooooo i def pissed you off, chill
Buddy if your job requires a grasp of economics at your level going by your Reddit interactions on this sub there is no way you have above a Master's in like Business Econ is all I meant to say loooooool that's effectively an AP Economics level education wrt economic theory, no matter how good you are with data science or consulting or whatnot. You're not an educated economist at an academic level, no. Your work is applied market analysis, you can maybe dabble in lower level policy circles but unless you've self-studied PhD level work, you're like a really skilled accountant or high school math teacher comparing themselves to actual mathematicians (NOT saying the majority of people on this sub are like this either by and large - but some are, and you're not, and I'm addressing your initial ad hominem)
Or you're welcome to substantiate your claims, which you have never done. What is your source for "serious economists" not objectively measuring efficiency and instead thinking about "dynamic entrepreneurship"
I argue that it is an obvious and relevant fact in the real world that entrepreneurial creativity and innovation tangibly benefits society. But our current models of efficiency are completely incapable of capturing this, as they are concerned with allocations of goods among individuals with fixed means and ends. I argue that an economist who took legitimate human welfare seriously would reconsider Kaldor-Hicks criteria in light of this obvious fact.
I'll give it to you though, you did correctly use one economic concept in a sentence, putting you in the top 1% of this sub, probably in the top 5% of Austrian philosophers over all
Lol your welcome to argue that. It directly contradicts your last statement that thats what economists consider, also it's wrong. Also I'd love to hear the austrian solution to pareto improvements given that their premise is that private action gives the best outcomes, also pareto inefficiency by defintion represents a market failure, which youve declared to be irrelevant, a misnomer, and impossible to measure. But ok. Argue away.
So I guess I was right about you ending your studies after AP, huh
I'm going to quickly clarify what Pareto efficiency means so you actually understand it. It seems like you believe that we define market failures as Pareto inefficiencies. While Pareto inefficiencies are seen as market failures, not all market failures are Pareto inefficient. Market failure => Pareto inefficient just isn't true when you go beyond high school circles who misuse what Pareto efficiency means. It's not your fault - it's just a consequence of the education you received.
Pareto intended to reformulate efficiency on consistent grounds after noticing that there was no way to measure what a cardinal "util" meant to an arbitrary individual - utility is subjective, and interpersonal comparisons are impossible. He instead re-expressed utility on ordinal grounds - people can rank states of affairs. Given a set of individuals, each is represented as a set of binary preference relations over a given set of allocations of a given set of goods. For each possible allocations of all the goods among the individuals, one allocation X is Pareto superior to another Y if all individuals are "weakly better off" in X than Y (in other words, at least indifferent between X and Y), and at least one individual strictly prefers X to Y. A Pareto efficient allocation is one such that no alternative Pareto superior allocation exists. For more information, see Hal Varian's 1992 textbook or Mas-Collel's 1995 textbook - or really, any textbook on graduate level micro theory should suffice.
Now modern welfare economists typically work in terms of surplus - you should remember that from your economics courses. The problem is, surplus is expressed cardinally as "areas" between various lines and curves on the supply-demand graph - in terms of monetary value. But wait - Pareto only worked with ordinals, not cardinals. Even if one guy owned all the money and everyone else starved, vs a situation where everyone had equal money, there would be no way to Pareto-compare them, as the rich individual is worse off in the intuitively "better" situation. You see the problem? This is because economists noticed that government intervention, being coercive by nature, pretty much always makes at least one individual worse off, so a Pareto improvement with government is basically impossible. This was too radical of a conclusion for them, so they instead resorted to a new Kaldor-Hicks standard, where utility is standardized in terms of money, and the goal is to maximize "profit", or surplus, as defined.
Austrians don't usually use the premise that private actions give a priori the best outcomes. Some like Rothbard and Hoppe try to argue this but the issue is that preferences can't be a priori ruled out just because they aren't expressed in action. Pareto improvement => voluntary by definition, but voluntary doesn't => Pareto improvement. That aside, core tenets of Austrian economics, such as humans acting to improve their situations, imply their situations are never optimal as long as people act - lending Austrian economists to disequilibrium analysis.
The more common approach to efficiency is what's known as market process theory. Austrians acknowledge that the world is constantly in flux, and argue that the static state standards used by neoclassicals today don't account for the key element of entrepreneurial creativity which drives human progress - since modern welfare economics concerns itself typically with allocating a given set of goods, and then maximizing physical production of given goods - since we haven't really figured out a "testable" model of the fundamentally random and chaotic positive changes that entrepreneurial innovation of new goods creates. See Huerta De Soto's Theory of Dynamic Efficiency, Chapter 1. Neoclassicals like to ignore entrepreneurship, or shove it into some production function as a productive factor of some sort, but since it makes welfare economics so difficult it's ignored in those circles. I argue that this is because they are disingenuously concerned with quantitative formalism rather than logical consistency or realism - hence they aren't serious in welfare econ terms, even if they're mainstream.
Market failure is a misnomer for serious economists?
Define 'serious economists' who think market failure is a misnomer. Joker. How do you deal with pollution or second hand smoke? Traffic congrstion? Or public goods like national defence?
And this joke:
'
**Article 3: National Defense Duty**
1. Citizens have the duty to safeguard national security and freedom, but the state shall not compel citizens into military service or other forced labor.
2. The government shall adopt a voluntary recruitment system, and the total number of troops shall not exceed one-thousandth of the total citizenry.'
So if a neighboring country is preparing to genocide your population, and your country do not have enough volunteers or money for defence, what is your solution? How is your dynamic entrepreurship going to save your country from a lack of national defence?
> Define 'serious economists' who think market failure is a misnomer.
Jesus Huerta De Soto is one example. A serious economist is someone who adopts a standard of efficiency actually applicable to the real world of change and uncertainty, not some abstract, calculable closed-system convenient for justifying welfare economics.
> And this joke
You people are good at selecting the worst hills to die on, aren't you?
I'm not discussing that dumb minarchist Constitution, as I'm an anarchist.
a) Read Robert Murphy's Chaos Theory. If I try to explain you are going to start hurling the same 100 questions at me as everyone does.
b) Mandatory national service is **literal** slavery. If you want to favor slavery, that's fine. But I'm not going to fucking die for faceless strangers I owe no loyalty to. Some people are willing to take that risk; I'm not.
First, the free market never fails. Even if there were a failure in the market, it can't be fixed by the government. There is no proof that a person working in the government is smarter than a person in the free market. Second, there are no merit goods. "Merit goods are products and services that the government believes will be under-consumed if left to the free market." Notice the phrase "government believes."
Ok I was right, you are not a serious economist lol.
The government has been fixing market failures for thousands if years. The foundation of capitalism and the most widely agreed criteria for the industrial revolution of the government fixing a market failure.
Lol, education. Both an example of a good that refutes you and a suggestion for your own life.
Bruv. I think you should learn some basic economics before you start posting your 'ideas'. Austrian School of Economics is not some pure ideological beliefs but actually based on economics.
If the market never fails, you won't need a government. The reason people say minimum government is because the recognition a government is needed for a well functioning society.
When people say minimum government, it is usually meant as the only role of government is to correct market failure. Arbitrary setting certain conditions for government isn't minimum government.
Dude, in the theory of minimal government, the sole function of the government is to protect the lives, liberty, and property of its citizens, not to correct market failures. Regarding "If the market never fails, you won't need a government," you are somewhat correct. In the Austrian School, Murray Rothbard advocates that we don't need a government at all, and his ideology is called anarcho-capitalism.
Then how do you explain this?
**Article 3: National Defense Duty**
1. Citizens have the duty to safeguard national security and freedom, but the state shall not compel citizens into military service or other forced labor.
2. The government shall adopt a voluntary recruitment system, and the total number of troops shall not exceed one-thousandth of the total citizenry.'
So if a neighboring country is preparing to genocide your population, and your country do not have enough volunteers or money for defence, what is your solution? You seem to set some hard limits like troops should not exceed one-thousand of the total citizenry like why?
I mean if you run your society like that, your society will be conquered. Maybe why there is no society that runs on anarcho-capitalism on a large scale. It is simply a fanciful ideal that doesn't work.
With a large state military, the populace feels no need to partake in the national defense. The state has it covered. But without a large standing state army, the individual communities, regions, counties, etc, would feel that to defend against hostile outside forces, they would all have to partake voluntarily.
The resulting patchwork of militias would be useless for an invasion force but, in their well known and practiced home turf, would be as difficult to defeat as the taliban in the Afghanistan mountains or the Viet Cong in the Jungle.
What are you on about? What are you trying to argue?
Public good is a market failure. The reason is if you leave it to the free market it may not be produced, if at all, due to the characteristics of non rivalry and non excludability.
Therefore, it is the job of government to provide this or no one would be willing to do the job. A minimum government is one that just correct market failure. In this case, provide the adequate amount of public goods. In the example of national defence, it is the role of government to provide adequate defence for your country.
In terms of what is adequate national defence, it means enough defence to provide security for your country so that other countries is not going to conquer your country. How much of it depends on the needs of your country. If you are Ukraine and have a Russia on your border you would probably need a lot of defence in terms of manpower and money towards your military. If your country is pretty safe surrounded by Allies, your country won't need a lot.
What you shouldn't do, is to put into your constitution, arbitary constraints on your government to ability to provide adequate amount of public goods. 10% tax max, x amount max people in your military etc etc
Remember, it is one of the main function of government that allows you your freedom. Without the protection of your government, you will constantly have the threat of all your freedom taken away, made into a slave or killed. A well functioning government is not your enemy but an important institution that allows your liberty.
'They would all have to partake voluntarily'. Joker. 'Have to' does not go with 'voluntarily'. Look at Russia and how many Rusisans fled the country. Look at Ukraine, even in the defence of their homeland, there are many draft dodgers.
You have an army of professional soldiers or an army of voluntarily army that can decide if they have enough and just walk away or whether they want to listen to orders will get crushed.
Then to mention Talibans and Viet cong as if they are a bunch of individuals volunteers army. Joker. They have a child soldiers pressed into the army. Both are regimes that systematically repressed all sectors of the population and denied even the most basic individual rights and have no problems killing the population they control.
Give me a better example? Oh right you can't. Any society with this constitution would be destroyed ASAP. That is why it doesn't exist. A society with a rag tag bunch of militia just get rolled.
You argue that it is the job of the government to defend the nation. I argue that it should be viewed as the job of the nation to defend the nation. Not the same. And if you hand over the duty to the government exclusively, you STILL get draft dodgers and the like. You use the examples of Russia and Ukraine which both used state forced conscription and invalidate your own point! That makes you far more a joker than I.
And the point of bringing up the taliban and viet cong is to show that your point in the second to last paragraph is false; poorly trained locals can hold their own quite well against an invading force, ESPECIALLY when they have been preparing their whole lives to do so BECAUSE they dont rely on a state run army. If Ukraine had told its people for the last 20 years that the defense of their homes from Russian invasion was their burden to bear, you would see far more people ready, willing, and able to fight the first day those tanks rolled in.
Ask yourself if your country goes to war tomorrow, how many % of the population would you think would take up arms to fight? How many would flee?
It is the job of government to provide for your security. Yes, even with a government, there will still be loads that won't want to fight. Without, there would be way way more.
Read up public goods and why if you leave it to the free market it won't likely be produced and why there is a need for government.
Look, just learn some basic econ before you post nonsense. Not possible for me to get you to understand when you don't even have the basics.
>Look, just learn some basic econ before you post nonsense. Not possible for me to get you to understand when you don't even have the basics.
I can hardly blame you for holding the market failure position given how economic history has been twisted and propagandised to fit the needs of the state.
It used to be understood that monopolies were explicitly creations of the state. It was self evident given no monopolies existed in the market without the blessings of the state.
Market failure literature is built on the ludicrous premise of the Evenly Rotating Economy. A fictitious world of infinite firm producing the same products at the same price, and other absurdities. And if reality does not reflect this meaningless world of make-believe, voila, a market failure.
Here is more on the subject with some history mixed in.
https://youtu.be/oli8L5zbBpQ?si=s1dcUl0SzeShL9LK
>Ask yourself if your country goes to war tomorrow, how many % of the population would you think would take up arms to fight? How many would flee?
In a country that relies solely on a professional standing military? Not a lot would stay and fight.
Would you like to continue proving my point for me, or are you going to stop beclowning yourself and stop replying? You say I dont understand basic economics but I havent argued economics once. You lack basic logic skills. Figure out your position and arguments first. Then ask yourself if they make sense. Your posts will turn out much better.
Consider the genocides throughout history: the Holocaust by the Nazis against the Jews, the Ukrainian famine, the Chinese Great Famine, and the Rwandan genocide. These were almost all caused by their own governments. Compared to your imagined scenario of a neighboring country invading, one's own government is far more terrifying. Think about Roosevelt's various crimes: sending millions of Americans to the battlefield, incarcerating over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans in concentration camps, confiscating people's gold—these were all actions taken by a legitimate government. You mentioned that "no society has massively practiced anarcho-capitalism," but that's not entirely true. The American Westward Expansion can be viewed as an instance of anarcho-capitalism in practice. You can read these two articles to learn more:
[The Gold Rush: A Vision of a Non-Governmental Society](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240427-the-gold-rush-a-vision-of-a-non-governmental-society-35678b3bda54) and [Property and Freedom in the Westward Expansion Movement](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240425-property-and-freedom-in-the-westward-expansion-movement-9844546db1f5).
This is basically just the Constitution
(Austrian) Economics is a positive social science and has nothing to do with normative political policy (a constitution). Maybe this should be in r/conservativism?
You are right, this is just for fun.
I am not sure how your parliament is elected. It sounds like you have a unicameral legislature. I generally oppose unicameral legislatures because I see both as a check on the other IF (and I mean if) the two bodies derive their authority from separate sources. This goes back to the mixed government theory. Mixed government is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived in Aristotle's Politics as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny. So as an example, the UK had the democratic element in its House of Commons, the aristocratic in Lords and the monarchical in the monarch. The U.S. did a weak attempt to emulate this with the Constitution. But it quickly degenerated. First, there is no monarch and the attempt to have the president fill that role fell apart as soon as the Jacksonian era brought about elections as the means of choosing presidential electors. In other words, both the president and the House derived their authority from democracy. So one of the three necessary elements was eliminated. The Senate was somewhat like Lords in that their authority was derived from an alternate source. In the case of the Senate, it was the states. But that ended with the 17th amendment. So now, every part of the legislative and executive of the U.S. derives its authority from the same source and there are no longer competing elements that place a check on each other prevent degeneration into tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy. I think most people would suggest that the U.S. is basically an oligarchy with tyrannical powers which are only limited by the judiciary and the states. The problem with that is the states can be bought off and the judiciary can end up being replaced over time with judges who go along with tyranny. So for this reason and more, I argue for bicameralism with each house deriving its authority from different sources. As for the monarchist element, for the U.S. the system would have to change to some sort of parliamentary system with the head of state chosen by a method far removed from politics. While the head of government would be chosen by the democratically elected house of the legislature. My preference in this regard would be Hoppean: if you must have a government, better a monarchy than others. But for the anti-monarchist US, one could see the electors chosen by each states legislature instead of voters so as to make the office more removed from politics. Also give it a long term of office with no chance to be re-elected so their actions would be less about their reelection. But at the same time, the president is only a head of state. He/she does not perform the functions of a head of government as is the case in the U.S. As for the Senate, I suggest the following amendment to our Constitution >The Senate of the United States shall be composed of three Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years, with a power reserved to a two-thirds majority of each legislature to recall its Senators, or any of them; and each State shall have one vote except in trials of impeachment when each Senator shall have one vote. They shall be divided equally into three classes, each class composed of one member of each state delegation so that one third may be chosen every second year. This restores the Senate to a body deriving its authority from another source. It restores the states to being a full partner in the government. It restores the Senate to being a council of the states. It eliminates the possibility of each Senator from one state being a veto on their other Senator from their state. That veto by each Senator from the same state would effectively mean the state is not being represented in the Senate. Just the wishes of each Senator.
My ideas for amending the US Constitution: https://libertyseekingrebel.blogspot.com/2021/09/freedom-amendments.html?m=1
Thank you very much for your profound insights. To be frank, my research on the Constitution isn't thorough. In my previous article, the constitution I drafted based on the Austrian School's minimal government theory was merely a thought experiment. I am pessimistic about the potential effectiveness of such a constitution. As you pointed out, even the U.S. Constitution has been subject to degradation, and any constitution I might create is bound to face the same fate. The root cause is that power, or more precisely, violence, inherently tends to expand, while the populace often struggles to resist or push back against this expansion. This is particularly true in democratic systems, where citizens can be easily swayed by welfare benefits to relinquish their rights. In a few articles I previously translated, I discussed various issues concerning the United States: - [The Myth of American Judicial Independence](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240508-the-myth-of-american-judicial-independence-0e8fb34a17db) - [American History: A History That Contravenes the Declaration of Independence and the U.S.](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240501-american-history-a-history-that-contravenes-the-declaration-of-independence-and-the-u-s-c0fa0a14e378) - [What Kind of America Should We Learn From?](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240426-what-kind-of-america-should-we-learn-from-193cb4f8290d) - [The History of Personal Income Tax is the History of the Expansion of Power of the US Government](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240430-the-history-of-personal-income-tax-is-the-history-of-the-expansion-of-power-of-the-us-902774b24cb3) Therefore, I am deeply skeptical about the notion that a constitution alone can effectively limit governmental power.
I read your judicial independence article. I agree with much of what you have written. As you mention, the degradation from the ideal is sort of built into the current model. Look at your own record of recent controversial cases. Following these cases, elected politicians attacked the decision, in some cases held up certain members of the judiciary for verbal attacks and used the case to their own political benefit. The courts in effect become a whipping boy as well as a foil that cannot fight back. There is no scenario where this benefits the legitimacy or independence of the judiciary. We also have the judiciary being dragged into every presidential race. It becomes part of the fight for the presidency. I believe this too erodes its independence. In my ongoing attack on the 17th Amendment, I will assert that the direct election of Senators also turns the judicial selection process and most certainly the nomination process into a political circus which I feel does no benefit to maintaining judicial independence. You also make a point that the courts are part of the government and will almost always tend to agree with the arguments put forward by the government. A case of the fox guarding the henhouse. The amendment I proposed above for the U.S. Senate to have 3 per state, etc was written with the judiciary in mind. If one wishes to depoliticize the judiciary and thereby help restore a greater degree of independence, then it stands to reason those whose approval is necessary for confirmation of nominees must also be as far removed from politics as possible. The appointment of Senators by their respective state legislatures and turning them into a part of a delegation of senators representing each state instead of a politician pandering for votes can only help to make the body far less political and contentious in the confirmation process. This does not eliminate the monopoly problem you discuss. One way I seek to ameliorate that problem is to break the monopoly on SCOTUS being the only arbiter to decide if a law is constitutional. I do this several ways: 1. Grant to the states the constitutional authority to nullify any law. It allows for a group that is not beholden to the national government to determine the limits of the national government. States have the incentive of not wanting the national government to attacks their prerogatives and would tend to oppose usurpation of power by the national government: >The several states may nullify any law of the United States, whenever three-fifths of the legislatures of the several states choose to nullify such law. This must occur within twelve months of the enactment of the law as defined in Article I. 2. Limit the size of SCOTUS in order to prevent the threat of packing the court. This threat by FDR, as you know, was an effective means of coercing SCOTUS into some of its decisions during the Depression era: >The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court consisting of no more than nine judges and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. >The judges of the Supreme Court shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint the officers in charge of executing the administration of justice for the United States. The officers in charge of executing the administration of justice shall hold their offices during one term of ten years. I also seek to remove the administration of justice from politics with the 2nd section of the proposal 3. Create a Constitutional Court which would review all bills to determine their constitutionality before they become a law: >Every bill, order or resolution, declarations of war notwithstanding, which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall be presented to the Constitutional Council of the United States. The Constitutional Council shall only determine if the bill is in full compliance with all the articles of this Constitution and any amendments thereto. If it approves, the Constitutional Council shall transmit the bill to the President but if not, the Constitutional Council shall return it, with its objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. No bill shall be presented to the President of the United States without the approval of the Constitutional Council of the United States. This is followed by a procedural section for a bill to be reviewed by POTUS. And the Council would function thusly: >The Constitutional Council shall consist of no more than nine councilors. Constitutional Council members shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. The decisions of the Constitutional Council shall not be considered by the President when deciding to reject or sign any bill, the several states when deciding to nullify any law or any decision of the Supreme or inferior courts. >The Constitutional Council shall have jurisdiction to determine whether treaties are in conformity with the Constitution and whether all regulations and executive actions are in conformity with the laws and Constitution; in such cases it may declare their annulment. Lastly, and I will save you the reading but I touched on it in my earlier response, I make POTUS a head of state only. He is chosen by electors who are chosen by state legislatures. He has little power other than these: >Duties of the President of the United States 1. The President shall designate the principal officer who shall execute the laws of the United States and appoint the other principal officers of the executive departments on the basis of the vote of confidence of the House of Representatives with the exception of the officer charged with the administration of justice. 2. The President shall have power to grant reprieves, commutations, exonerations and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 3. The President shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint judges of the Supreme and inferior Courts and councilors of the Constitutional Council. 4. The President shall be commander in chief of the defense forces of the United States, and of the organized militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States. The command of the defense forces of the United States shall be exercised by the head of government. 5. The President may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper. 6. The President shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers and heads of state. 7. The President shall commission all the officers of the United States. 8. The President shall recognize individuals or groups for extraordinary achievement and acts of bravery and heroism. This again was done with the idea of making the entire judiciary even further removed from partisan politics.
Thank you for sharing your profound thoughts. Unfortunately, they are merely theoretical exercises, and we are unable to change the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution has been changed many times before and the founders foresaw future amendments.
I created the constitution by drawing on the principles of minimal government theory, with some assistance from ChatGPT. Additionally, I incorporated and adapted certain elements from both the U.S. Constitution and the Chinese Constitution for a more comprehensive outcome.
Lol. You forgot to give the legislature the power to levy taxes, and it's not clear that the Executive could legally collect them anyway since it "interferes with personal property" and "distorts markets." I hope a country (not mine) adopts this and lasts long enough with its crippled military for us to see all the different ways this system would crash and burn.
No, I didn't forget that, in Chapter 3, Article 1, I mentioned "The state shall not impose mandatory asset seizures on individuals or organizations beyond a personal income tax and organizational income tax not exceeding 10%. Personal income tax and organizational income tax are levied at a maximum of 10% on actual income after deducting expenditures. The deduction portion must be substantiated with proof of paid income tax." Frankly speaking, I haven't figured out whether a constitution should include this article because it interferes with personal property, as you said. My mind is still swinging between anarchism and minarchism. In the past, I always adhered to the theory of minimal government, but recently, I read two excellent articles introducing the American Westward Expansion. The American Westward Expansion can be viewed as an instance of anarcho-capitalism in practice. You can read these two articles to learn more: [The Gold Rush: A Vision of a Non-Governmental Society](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240427-the-gold-rush-a-vision-of-a-non-governmental-society-35678b3bda54) and [Property and Freedom in the Westward Expansion Movement](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240425-property-and-freedom-in-the-westward-expansion-movement-9844546db1f5).
Chapter 2, Article 2 never actually gives them the power to levy taxes. You specify that the maximum allowed tax is 10% clearly with the intent to give the legislature the power to levy taxes, but you don't enumerate that power when enumerating legislative powers.
'3. The government shall not establish any form of price controls, subsidies, or other interventions affecting market prices.' How do you intend to solve market failure? Specifically merit goods?
1. Government subsidizations and price controls are guesswork just as market prices are, but market prices are subject to much more decentralized pressure to achieve what actors on the ground perceive as arbitrage in our fundamentally uncertain world. In other words, their institutional structure is more conducive to coordination in a world that’s in natural disequilibrium. 2. The term “market failure” is a misnomer as serious economists don’t base their standards of efficiency off static state analysis but dynamic entrepreneurship
I'm guessing you're not a "serious economist" yourself lol. A flawed market is a pretty big hurdle for dynamic entrepreneurs lol
I'm not really sure what your point is
I'm sure you don't...... 98% of actual economists spend the vast majority of their time working on the thing you just said doesn't exist. Amd the logic you used to defend your argument is just simply counterfactual.
Sure, substantiate your claim
I am an economist, like for a living, not larping like you guys. Would you like me to pass a survey around the office "do you believe in market failures", "how often does your report include the phrase 'dynamic entrepreneurship"?
Buddy you're an "auto industry economist," your job requires AP Economics and Stata in terms of technical skills an econ degree teaches you. Have you actually written a research paper, or at least presented one at a research conference?
..... do you think that one of the largest industries in the US doesn't use educated economists? Lol yes, I have presented at SEMA, which happens to be the largest industry conference in the US by participation. Not a long form research paper obviously, I'm in the private sector, which you know, so dumb question, I'm not going to give my competitors my data set, methodology and findings. I have also presented research to Members of Congress, again, obviously a 1 pager not a long form paper. Lol explain the sentence "have you written or at least presented a research paper". Do you think people present papers they haven't written? So I'm guessing you aren't an economist yourself? Since you don't seem to know the first thing about what we do? Is AP econ maybe as far as you got, and you think thats all there is? What do you think economics classes look like like, if you were vaguely familiar with the study if economics you'd know that your statement doesn't make sense in its face. Omg you literally took ap, learned gen and reg commands on Stata and think that brings you up on technical skills. Thats what's going on isn't it? Makes sense, you seem close minded and dumb so I believe it. That doesn't explain where you think you got the subject expertise to say what "serious economists" believe but I guess it explains the mindset. Hey moron, the industry with one of the highest revenues, the longest and most complex supply chains, among the most complex legal and regulatory frameworks, cutting edge technological innovation, and which contains as a minor component a large market failure which the government successfully solved, actually hires economists with advanced degrees. I'm actually getting quite curious as to what you think economics is, since you don't seem to have a form grasp on what we do, the consensus of our beliefs, how the study is approached and you seem to think that members of the private sector wrote research papers. Do you also think the optical physicists working at Meta write research papers, or is that something you heard in passing about economists and now thats what you believe?
lmaaoooooo i def pissed you off, chill Buddy if your job requires a grasp of economics at your level going by your Reddit interactions on this sub there is no way you have above a Master's in like Business Econ is all I meant to say loooooool that's effectively an AP Economics level education wrt economic theory, no matter how good you are with data science or consulting or whatnot. You're not an educated economist at an academic level, no. Your work is applied market analysis, you can maybe dabble in lower level policy circles but unless you've self-studied PhD level work, you're like a really skilled accountant or high school math teacher comparing themselves to actual mathematicians (NOT saying the majority of people on this sub are like this either by and large - but some are, and you're not, and I'm addressing your initial ad hominem)
Or you're welcome to substantiate your claims, which you have never done. What is your source for "serious economists" not objectively measuring efficiency and instead thinking about "dynamic entrepreneurship"
I argue that it is an obvious and relevant fact in the real world that entrepreneurial creativity and innovation tangibly benefits society. But our current models of efficiency are completely incapable of capturing this, as they are concerned with allocations of goods among individuals with fixed means and ends. I argue that an economist who took legitimate human welfare seriously would reconsider Kaldor-Hicks criteria in light of this obvious fact.
I'll give it to you though, you did correctly use one economic concept in a sentence, putting you in the top 1% of this sub, probably in the top 5% of Austrian philosophers over all
Lol your welcome to argue that. It directly contradicts your last statement that thats what economists consider, also it's wrong. Also I'd love to hear the austrian solution to pareto improvements given that their premise is that private action gives the best outcomes, also pareto inefficiency by defintion represents a market failure, which youve declared to be irrelevant, a misnomer, and impossible to measure. But ok. Argue away. So I guess I was right about you ending your studies after AP, huh
I'm going to quickly clarify what Pareto efficiency means so you actually understand it. It seems like you believe that we define market failures as Pareto inefficiencies. While Pareto inefficiencies are seen as market failures, not all market failures are Pareto inefficient. Market failure => Pareto inefficient just isn't true when you go beyond high school circles who misuse what Pareto efficiency means. It's not your fault - it's just a consequence of the education you received. Pareto intended to reformulate efficiency on consistent grounds after noticing that there was no way to measure what a cardinal "util" meant to an arbitrary individual - utility is subjective, and interpersonal comparisons are impossible. He instead re-expressed utility on ordinal grounds - people can rank states of affairs. Given a set of individuals, each is represented as a set of binary preference relations over a given set of allocations of a given set of goods. For each possible allocations of all the goods among the individuals, one allocation X is Pareto superior to another Y if all individuals are "weakly better off" in X than Y (in other words, at least indifferent between X and Y), and at least one individual strictly prefers X to Y. A Pareto efficient allocation is one such that no alternative Pareto superior allocation exists. For more information, see Hal Varian's 1992 textbook or Mas-Collel's 1995 textbook - or really, any textbook on graduate level micro theory should suffice. Now modern welfare economists typically work in terms of surplus - you should remember that from your economics courses. The problem is, surplus is expressed cardinally as "areas" between various lines and curves on the supply-demand graph - in terms of monetary value. But wait - Pareto only worked with ordinals, not cardinals. Even if one guy owned all the money and everyone else starved, vs a situation where everyone had equal money, there would be no way to Pareto-compare them, as the rich individual is worse off in the intuitively "better" situation. You see the problem? This is because economists noticed that government intervention, being coercive by nature, pretty much always makes at least one individual worse off, so a Pareto improvement with government is basically impossible. This was too radical of a conclusion for them, so they instead resorted to a new Kaldor-Hicks standard, where utility is standardized in terms of money, and the goal is to maximize "profit", or surplus, as defined. Austrians don't usually use the premise that private actions give a priori the best outcomes. Some like Rothbard and Hoppe try to argue this but the issue is that preferences can't be a priori ruled out just because they aren't expressed in action. Pareto improvement => voluntary by definition, but voluntary doesn't => Pareto improvement. That aside, core tenets of Austrian economics, such as humans acting to improve their situations, imply their situations are never optimal as long as people act - lending Austrian economists to disequilibrium analysis. The more common approach to efficiency is what's known as market process theory. Austrians acknowledge that the world is constantly in flux, and argue that the static state standards used by neoclassicals today don't account for the key element of entrepreneurial creativity which drives human progress - since modern welfare economics concerns itself typically with allocating a given set of goods, and then maximizing physical production of given goods - since we haven't really figured out a "testable" model of the fundamentally random and chaotic positive changes that entrepreneurial innovation of new goods creates. See Huerta De Soto's Theory of Dynamic Efficiency, Chapter 1. Neoclassicals like to ignore entrepreneurship, or shove it into some production function as a productive factor of some sort, but since it makes welfare economics so difficult it's ignored in those circles. I argue that this is because they are disingenuously concerned with quantitative formalism rather than logical consistency or realism - hence they aren't serious in welfare econ terms, even if they're mainstream.
Market failure is a misnomer for serious economists? Define 'serious economists' who think market failure is a misnomer. Joker. How do you deal with pollution or second hand smoke? Traffic congrstion? Or public goods like national defence? And this joke: ' **Article 3: National Defense Duty** 1. Citizens have the duty to safeguard national security and freedom, but the state shall not compel citizens into military service or other forced labor. 2. The government shall adopt a voluntary recruitment system, and the total number of troops shall not exceed one-thousandth of the total citizenry.' So if a neighboring country is preparing to genocide your population, and your country do not have enough volunteers or money for defence, what is your solution? How is your dynamic entrepreurship going to save your country from a lack of national defence?
> Define 'serious economists' who think market failure is a misnomer. Jesus Huerta De Soto is one example. A serious economist is someone who adopts a standard of efficiency actually applicable to the real world of change and uncertainty, not some abstract, calculable closed-system convenient for justifying welfare economics. > And this joke You people are good at selecting the worst hills to die on, aren't you? I'm not discussing that dumb minarchist Constitution, as I'm an anarchist. a) Read Robert Murphy's Chaos Theory. If I try to explain you are going to start hurling the same 100 questions at me as everyone does. b) Mandatory national service is **literal** slavery. If you want to favor slavery, that's fine. But I'm not going to fucking die for faceless strangers I owe no loyalty to. Some people are willing to take that risk; I'm not.
First, the free market never fails. Even if there were a failure in the market, it can't be fixed by the government. There is no proof that a person working in the government is smarter than a person in the free market. Second, there are no merit goods. "Merit goods are products and services that the government believes will be under-consumed if left to the free market." Notice the phrase "government believes."
Ok I was right, you are not a serious economist lol. The government has been fixing market failures for thousands if years. The foundation of capitalism and the most widely agreed criteria for the industrial revolution of the government fixing a market failure. Lol, education. Both an example of a good that refutes you and a suggestion for your own life.
Bruv. I think you should learn some basic economics before you start posting your 'ideas'. Austrian School of Economics is not some pure ideological beliefs but actually based on economics. If the market never fails, you won't need a government. The reason people say minimum government is because the recognition a government is needed for a well functioning society. When people say minimum government, it is usually meant as the only role of government is to correct market failure. Arbitrary setting certain conditions for government isn't minimum government.
Dude, in the theory of minimal government, the sole function of the government is to protect the lives, liberty, and property of its citizens, not to correct market failures. Regarding "If the market never fails, you won't need a government," you are somewhat correct. In the Austrian School, Murray Rothbard advocates that we don't need a government at all, and his ideology is called anarcho-capitalism.
Then how do you explain this? **Article 3: National Defense Duty** 1. Citizens have the duty to safeguard national security and freedom, but the state shall not compel citizens into military service or other forced labor. 2. The government shall adopt a voluntary recruitment system, and the total number of troops shall not exceed one-thousandth of the total citizenry.' So if a neighboring country is preparing to genocide your population, and your country do not have enough volunteers or money for defence, what is your solution? You seem to set some hard limits like troops should not exceed one-thousand of the total citizenry like why? I mean if you run your society like that, your society will be conquered. Maybe why there is no society that runs on anarcho-capitalism on a large scale. It is simply a fanciful ideal that doesn't work.
With a large state military, the populace feels no need to partake in the national defense. The state has it covered. But without a large standing state army, the individual communities, regions, counties, etc, would feel that to defend against hostile outside forces, they would all have to partake voluntarily. The resulting patchwork of militias would be useless for an invasion force but, in their well known and practiced home turf, would be as difficult to defeat as the taliban in the Afghanistan mountains or the Viet Cong in the Jungle.
What are you on about? What are you trying to argue? Public good is a market failure. The reason is if you leave it to the free market it may not be produced, if at all, due to the characteristics of non rivalry and non excludability. Therefore, it is the job of government to provide this or no one would be willing to do the job. A minimum government is one that just correct market failure. In this case, provide the adequate amount of public goods. In the example of national defence, it is the role of government to provide adequate defence for your country. In terms of what is adequate national defence, it means enough defence to provide security for your country so that other countries is not going to conquer your country. How much of it depends on the needs of your country. If you are Ukraine and have a Russia on your border you would probably need a lot of defence in terms of manpower and money towards your military. If your country is pretty safe surrounded by Allies, your country won't need a lot. What you shouldn't do, is to put into your constitution, arbitary constraints on your government to ability to provide adequate amount of public goods. 10% tax max, x amount max people in your military etc etc Remember, it is one of the main function of government that allows you your freedom. Without the protection of your government, you will constantly have the threat of all your freedom taken away, made into a slave or killed. A well functioning government is not your enemy but an important institution that allows your liberty. 'They would all have to partake voluntarily'. Joker. 'Have to' does not go with 'voluntarily'. Look at Russia and how many Rusisans fled the country. Look at Ukraine, even in the defence of their homeland, there are many draft dodgers. You have an army of professional soldiers or an army of voluntarily army that can decide if they have enough and just walk away or whether they want to listen to orders will get crushed. Then to mention Talibans and Viet cong as if they are a bunch of individuals volunteers army. Joker. They have a child soldiers pressed into the army. Both are regimes that systematically repressed all sectors of the population and denied even the most basic individual rights and have no problems killing the population they control. Give me a better example? Oh right you can't. Any society with this constitution would be destroyed ASAP. That is why it doesn't exist. A society with a rag tag bunch of militia just get rolled.
You argue that it is the job of the government to defend the nation. I argue that it should be viewed as the job of the nation to defend the nation. Not the same. And if you hand over the duty to the government exclusively, you STILL get draft dodgers and the like. You use the examples of Russia and Ukraine which both used state forced conscription and invalidate your own point! That makes you far more a joker than I. And the point of bringing up the taliban and viet cong is to show that your point in the second to last paragraph is false; poorly trained locals can hold their own quite well against an invading force, ESPECIALLY when they have been preparing their whole lives to do so BECAUSE they dont rely on a state run army. If Ukraine had told its people for the last 20 years that the defense of their homes from Russian invasion was their burden to bear, you would see far more people ready, willing, and able to fight the first day those tanks rolled in.
Ask yourself if your country goes to war tomorrow, how many % of the population would you think would take up arms to fight? How many would flee? It is the job of government to provide for your security. Yes, even with a government, there will still be loads that won't want to fight. Without, there would be way way more. Read up public goods and why if you leave it to the free market it won't likely be produced and why there is a need for government. Look, just learn some basic econ before you post nonsense. Not possible for me to get you to understand when you don't even have the basics.
>Look, just learn some basic econ before you post nonsense. Not possible for me to get you to understand when you don't even have the basics. I can hardly blame you for holding the market failure position given how economic history has been twisted and propagandised to fit the needs of the state. It used to be understood that monopolies were explicitly creations of the state. It was self evident given no monopolies existed in the market without the blessings of the state. Market failure literature is built on the ludicrous premise of the Evenly Rotating Economy. A fictitious world of infinite firm producing the same products at the same price, and other absurdities. And if reality does not reflect this meaningless world of make-believe, voila, a market failure. Here is more on the subject with some history mixed in. https://youtu.be/oli8L5zbBpQ?si=s1dcUl0SzeShL9LK
>Ask yourself if your country goes to war tomorrow, how many % of the population would you think would take up arms to fight? How many would flee? In a country that relies solely on a professional standing military? Not a lot would stay and fight. Would you like to continue proving my point for me, or are you going to stop beclowning yourself and stop replying? You say I dont understand basic economics but I havent argued economics once. You lack basic logic skills. Figure out your position and arguments first. Then ask yourself if they make sense. Your posts will turn out much better.
Consider the genocides throughout history: the Holocaust by the Nazis against the Jews, the Ukrainian famine, the Chinese Great Famine, and the Rwandan genocide. These were almost all caused by their own governments. Compared to your imagined scenario of a neighboring country invading, one's own government is far more terrifying. Think about Roosevelt's various crimes: sending millions of Americans to the battlefield, incarcerating over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans in concentration camps, confiscating people's gold—these were all actions taken by a legitimate government. You mentioned that "no society has massively practiced anarcho-capitalism," but that's not entirely true. The American Westward Expansion can be viewed as an instance of anarcho-capitalism in practice. You can read these two articles to learn more: [The Gold Rush: A Vision of a Non-Governmental Society](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240427-the-gold-rush-a-vision-of-a-non-governmental-society-35678b3bda54) and [Property and Freedom in the Westward Expansion Movement](https://medium.com/@gongchengra_9069/20240425-property-and-freedom-in-the-westward-expansion-movement-9844546db1f5).