[Essay]Should the United Nations have a standing army?

[devonin]

Originally Posted by Kilroy_x

I don't think elected leaders particularly are legitimate, and yes your response is largely trite and ignores a lot of issues involved.

i guess the point I was more trying to make here was "if you don't like it, you can leave. So by staying, you give if not tacit approval, at least tacit acceptance.

Yes, consensus of multiple courts. The availability of courts would hopefully mean any sane person wouldn't subscribe to a system with such draconian punishment. It would probably end up being the lesser sentence in any case.

I just think that the balance would actually be struck more in favour of incredibly draconian punishments. If I have no intention of ever commiting a crime, never stealing, never assaulting etc, why is it -not- in my best interest to support the strongest consequences for crime possible? It's a wonderful deterrant to the people who'd commit crimes on -me- if where I come from, the penalty for most crimes is death.

This could be attributed to its monopoly status as much as anything else.

Granted and withdrawn.

This would be almost impossible. You already forcibly subscribe to a police system which is a coercive monopoly. There's no discernable reason for you not to be able to afford police service that's less expensive (and more improved) by competition.

I'm not sure we can really judge how much the current police system actually "costs" even in terms of what percentage of our tax dollars go in that direction currently. it's one of those fundamental services that the government provides no matter what, so the price tag there is rather tough to pin down. But I grant you that as in virtually everything, competition makes for cheaper more efficient services, provided sufficient structure is in place to prevent price-fixing, and coalitions.

I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this.

I mean that when you remove all nations, and allow every service and concept to fall under the auspices of a free market, you're creating both a global economy and a global political system. With no nations, a company based out of what -was- a country can now offer its services everywhere on the globe. I was simply saying that you underestimate the extent to which plenty of existing groups whose only stranglehold on power is that they are the only game in town would oppose such a system.

That's fine. It just strikes me as annoying when I try to right something with the hope of anticipating and negating a criticism and then the criticism comes anyways.

I'll grant that it could be me being blind and not seeing where you address the point if you'll admit that it could be you not addressing the objection as completely as you think you do. I'll pay closer attention to the depths of the arguments in the future.

How did you come to this conclusion? Rothbard is an Anarcho-CAPITALIST. There's no trace of syndicalism in this perspective, no advocacy of public ownership. It's individualism combined with firm belief in the free market, along the lines of some more radical libertarian positions. Time constraints aren't important, as long as steps are progressive rather than regressive. For instance, anarcho-synidalists have the odd tendency to be very hypocritical by supporting the initial establishment of one world government to hypothetically support the transition to anarchy. This is a contradiction in terms.

Well, I said "looking towards" not "trying to form" I mean...you're looking at removing national borders entirely, removing political systems entirely, replacing everything with free market services, encouraging as much global competition in all aspects of life as you can (I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but Rothbard is going -way- past simply resolving defense issues this way, and would be perfectly happy seeing -everything- operate under this system.

it just seems to me that the system being described seems like it would function -best- in a highly sociallly aware, egalitarian society, where competition keeps all costs low, all efficiency high, and where different kinds of services would be encouraged to form package-deal style co-ops, where you get every service for one low low price.