This subject is a tricky one, as religion and faith are inexorably intertwined. To this end, I'll begin by distinguishing religion & faith conceptually, then will explain the deeper links between religion & the state, ideally in an attempt to prove they are in essence the same concept.
What is Faith
I personally have faith in something that I find undefinable. Every time I try to define it, it comes out a rambling nonsense. If you must label it anything, generic Christian is close, though there is much about that particular organised religion that I wholeheartedly disapprove of. That faith, however, gives me no right to make others live my way. That is fine by me, so long as I can live the way I want to myself. This is the primary distinction between faith and religions, however - one is personal, the other is public.
Where Faith Ends & Religion Begins
A person's faith ends with themselves. It's a personalised view of the beliefs you have, and how they impact you as an individual. A religion, however, is a collective & organised definition of faith.
They tend to have hierarchies, rituals, tithes, and laws based on some traditional definition of morality for society, while faith simply dictates an individuals morality. Religion, being a shared belief set, affects all who share in the belief at minimum. If that religion is also enshrined as law, it can impact anyone in a region, regardless of what the individuals of that region believe.
Religion & Divine Right
Religions have always claimed that their deity has the divine right to rule the people. The priests, as intermediaries between the mortal and the divine, originally held this right by proxy. In the end, however, the God was the only one whom ever had such power, and such powers returned to the God once a priest died.
Religion & States - A Brief History
Since the dawn of civilisation began, society has had religions. We have as a species sought the "why" to all the great questions, and when the answers are unknown we historically made up a reason ourselves. In the early days of civilisation, we had no science to provide logical answers, so we used faith & gods as a means to answer such questions.
Early on, the power of governance resided in the priesthood. To consolidate this power, the priests gave temporary power to nobles. To begin with, kingship was bestowed by priests on nobles (usually by marrying off the high priestess to a candidate), with the king being allowed to rule in times of plenty, & sacrificed in times of hardship. This dynamic changed once dynasties began to form. After a few thousand years, we eventually had nobles claiming the divine right of kingship without the priesthood's prior involvement (Sargon III of Akkad).
Kingship, Government, & Divine Rule
The idea that Kingship was bestowed on individuals via their blood has existed since then until today, as monarchs still exist. However, all kings have always claimed their power to rule others comes from a God. So long as they follow God's law, they can make just and benevolent decisions for others because they have that divine right to rule. This conditional following of faith is the main reason why King Henry VIII created the Church of England - with that, he could break accepted Catholic beliefs on marriage, without invalidating his divine right to rule.
This premise survived as a concept for thousands of years, and only began to lose traction to other forms of government with the French & American Revolutions. It was at this point that the revival of the ideas of democracy and Republics returned to the fray.
Divine Right & Modern States
Even though kings were dismissed by the ideas of republicanism and democracy, the concept of the states, governments, and the existence of "divine rights" survived. Instead of being inside a person, however, those rights were instilled into the system of government & the newly formed constitution. So, in a modern society, the government has assumed the power of God, but gloss over this fact by claiming their mandate comes from people.
However, there is a problem with the idea that the people have the divine right to rule. No one since the days slavery was socially acceptable has considered it okay for an individual to force anyone to act without consent. So if no one person can tell another what to do, why is it a group can get that power.
Let's turn this into a maths equation.
Let x represent the number of people who are in society.
Let y = the % of people with the divine right to rule another without consent.
We can stop there to be honest, because no one in a Republic or a democracy can claim to have divine rights. Thus, y will always equal 0 in the above equation. Ergo, no matter how large the society (x), the strength of society's right to use forceful rule over another will always equal 0.
Religion & the State - Food for Thought
Since society cannot claim the right to rule others, but the state can, then logically, the state must be considered a divine being in an of itself. It cannot claim that God gave those rights to the state, nor did the people. Some men, long dead, signed an agreement once, voluntarily. No one alive has joined them in that agreement, and those men never claimed God bestowed them or their positions with divine powers. Ergo, those who believe the government works for them and can help us have given up their faith to their new God, the state.
This presents a serious problem to worshippers of any form of Judaeo-Christian God. "Thou shalt not worship any other God" is RULE # 1 in both faiths. But all statists believe the state has God's rights, without any link to God or individual consent. The follower of any derivatives of either Judaism or Christianity is a hypocrite if they believe the state has the right to rule others without consent. They also are damned by their own rules.
The New World Religion
People can deny the state is their new God, but it's the only logical conclusion one can draw. Once you start looking at it that way, many parliamentary systems, and the US government itself, really start looking like the popular organised religions.
The government buildings are the churches. The politicians are the clergy. The civil servants are the acolytes. The diehard left and right are the zealots. The vote & petitions are prayers. The taxes are tithes. The law is the Holy writ. The sessions of Congress & Senate are the ceremonies. They have costumes, altars, and holy idols in the form of robes & suits, podiums, and flags (which these days people treat with as much deference as the cross).
Conclusion
There are dozens of parallels that can be drawn between the two institutions. It isn't surprising, given how much they have intertwined over the years. Today, they are the new religion of man. Each nation has its own sect, but they are all effectively the same & equally dangerous.
They worshiped the dragon who had given authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can wage war against it?” - Revelation 13:4
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Your logic is based on a false premise. You say that the state is a god because it has a divine right to rule. The problem is that there is no such thing as a divine right to rule. That was a fiction made by men who wished to justify their right to rule and to quash dissent. Nothing more.
The "state" is simply the power structure under which we live. Its power to rule comes from the fact that it has the power to rule. In times past, this power was held by princes and kings with armies (and weapons), or by religions (with armies and weapons), and now it is held by private corporations (who buy politicians and laws, and with them, armies and weapons).
So you can either submit to an unelected Pope (or a set of commandments made by a bunch of dead people to rule), or to a dictator (in many countries), or to corporations (who dictate when you get up, where you go to work, how long you stay there, what you do while you are there, and when you get to go home, even, in some circumstances, your access to contraception, healthcare, etc.), or to politicians who nominally promise to listen to you and carry out your wishes.
A a born person, you can choose to find one of these greasy poles to climb, or you can allow yourself to be ruled by one of these powers.
But the idea currently popular in some sections of America that healthcare, social security and a higher minimum wage are somehow a form of oppression - thats insane. The main form of oppression in America today is employers who give their workers a fraction of the wealth they create, pocketing the rest for themselves. The same employers who take from you any freedom to do work you find rewarding, useful, creative, or helping others. The choice today is to exit the system (with the danger that that involves) or to remain in the system and be controlled. Quit worrying about which god thinks which system he approves of and start seeing which people actually control the average person's daily life and how. Obama's influence on your day-2-day life is a fraction of that wielded by faceless corporocrats. People you have no access to, no information on, and no way of influencing.
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Greetings @sardonyx. I'm glad you got the point (that the state is and always has been based on a false premise), but then you lost it immediately. First off, corporations are products of the state. They cannot exist without state protections, like the limited liability they enjoy. I think you have confused cause and effect when it comes to the state. Don't feel too bad about it though, almost everyone does it these days thanks to this new cultish religion claiming ownership over us.
Secondly, business and employment contracts are not a government, they are voluntarily agreed contracts. You can choose whom you work for, but you are born to the sect of government you live with. You have to work, yes, but that's a prerequisite to survival for any individual.
You seem to ignore the fact there are millions of unelected civil servants who run the state and never get elected or chosen by the people. They are appointed positions, and they decide how to implement policies. Your politicians whom you have faith in are corrupted by the financing they get from their cronies for their political careers. They spend more time campaigning for their positions than they do trying to fix things. To think that such a system works for you and not the corporations you are railing against is lunacy to me.
You present 4 options, 3 of which claim they can rule you without consent, and one of which requires your consent first. So a) nice veiled strawman argument against capitalism, and b) you still haven't shown how any such systems has a right to rule others without consent.
Regarding healthcare, you are assuming a government controlled system is best positioned to deliver to everyone's needs without incurring huge costs that everyone must pay for. We had systems which worked for the vast majority, then the state began micromanagement of the market, and did so to benefit a select few.
Regarding social security, you are demanding people pay into a system that is a ponzi scheme of epic proportion, one which is grossly underfunded to pay out for everyone who has payed in. That money could be invested soundly, or used to pay off existing debts, but no, it must go to the glorious new God you worship to keep safe for someone older to use tomorrow.
As for minimum wage, dude, really? Being told you can't work if you cannot produce labour of X value or greater isn't oppression to you? You think businesses don't pass the costs of that price floor back to the consumer somehow? If it's such a good idea, why not $100/hr? Or a $1000?
The main forms of oppression are not via businesses. What you are allowed to own, eat, smoke, drink, do business with, and how much you pay for all of it, is in some part dictated by the state itself. Taxes, regulations (and their inevitable instances of regulatory capture), prohibition, & forced association have existed for years. Since the PATRIOT act, you can add invasion of privacy and restrictions on free speech to the list of oppressive measures. Because of this new religion, we have dedicated trillions of dollars fighting two wars on abstract nouns (drugs & terror).
Finally, you haven't established how anyone has the right to rule another without explicit consent. Until you can establish how that right exists in a collective but not in the individual, you can't claim the state isn't pretending to be a divine being.
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Where to start...
Why not "Secondly, business and employment contracts are not a government, they are voluntarily agreed contracts. You can choose whom you work for, but you are born to the sect of government you live with. You have to work, yes, but that's a prerequisite to survival for any individual."
In ancient times, "work" meant walking into the jungle, building a house, and collecting nearby fruit. If you really wanted to go the extra mile, you planted a few fruit trees. Today, unlike every other species on earth, you cannot simply walk to an area and start working (farming and housebuilding). Because someone else has "left" that land to their kids in their will. All land is owned. Because that choice is today unavailable, you are mostly limited to selling your work to someone else, and they take 50% and give you 50% - if you are lucky. This is the way things are. True, the very smart can live without "an employer", but that if that were easy, then everyone would be doing it. Every way in which people attempt to leave the corporate system is nailed down, one by one. Try driving your own taxi, for example, (forget Uber - they want their cut also). Try cooking food and selling it on the sidewalk. You will be cited and charged and thrown in prison faster than you can say "freedom". Try finding a nice spot in the desert and drilling an oil well. Sure, there is a PRETENSE of consensual contracting, but the reality is that people HAVE to work to eat, and that means that they have to take what they are given. Thats a reality of life, not an ideal on paper, or a campaign slogan for capitalism.
You are of course free to CONTRACT with any other government you choose. I have done so many times in my life, and have lived and worked, legally, in three countries. So just like the supposed freedom to contract for the work and pay that you choose, you theoretically have the supposed freedom to contract with any government you like.
If course, we come to the same tweedle-dum tweedle-dee problem we have with corporations - You can pick any you like, but they are all essentially the same. So again, you have a pretend freedom which ends up as no real choice in reality.
Power is power, whether it is expressed by corporations, governments, religion or any other structure. And the point of power is to take away your freedoms so that those with the power can now work less by parasiting off your labors.
The only way you can exit the system is to hide in the woods and hope they dont find you, or to downsize your life so they dont care about you, or to join the greasy pole and become one of them.
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" Your politicians whom you have faith in are corrupted by the financing they get from their cronies for their political careers. They spend more time campaigning for their positions than they do trying to fix things. To think that such a system works for you and not the corporations you are railing against is lunacy to me."
That's really up to us, is it not? This election cycle, democrats had the opportunity to vote for someone who was committed to ending the influence of money in politics, but instead sufficient numbers voted for a candidate who takes money from Wall Street. The Republicans, for their part, nominated someone who announced that he had bribed every candidate on the stage. This is who Americans CHOSE for nomination to the Presidency, so its no surprise that the system will continue.
Other nations are different. Ireland has jailed 3 bankers this week, largely because after the banking collapse there, the historically largest party was thrown out in a complete rout. From 45% down to about 15% I think. The politicians were put on notice by the people.
Voting is a tool, but it has to be used to work. Americans just seem not to bother. But that is their choice. Because Americans think that they have no voice, they dont use it. But you do and you can use it and if you do, things will change. Billionaires have a tiny fraction of the votes. When the 90% get fed up of the system that feeds the rich at their expense, they can change it by voting for others - and indeed, by standing for office themselves. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, there are people there who want to reform the system. You just have to choose them and throw out the crooks. Anyone who refuses to overturn Citizens United is a great first candidate to throw out.
I never said that democracy automatically fixes things - like any tool, it has actually to be used, and used wisely.
But the "free market" is nothing less than a system that funnels wealth from everyone to those who have existing wealth. It is a wealth-concentration system, nothing more. When you have enough cash, you buy the means of production so that others slave for you. Its quite simple. It is the freedom to exploit the weak with impunity.
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"You seem to ignore the fact there are millions of unelected civil servants who run the state and never get elected or chosen by the people. "
Is that any different from the middle managers who run every aspect of your daily life and who have been appointed by unaccountables in the boardroom?
The difference is that as a citizen, you get to hold the chief accountable. If he hires bad people, you can fire him. You cant do that at work. Your only choice is to change system. Like I said, you can also change countries if you dont like your President. There is also local politics, where you get to elect many people with local power, from local govt. to school boards and fire chiefs. But no, you dont get to hire the janitor. We choose the executives, we dont do their work for them. But we can vote on the quality of their execution - including who they hired and their competence.
In this election, we can look at the teams that the candidates are building around themselves, and vote accordingly, for example.
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"Regarding healthcare, you are assuming a government controlled system is best positioned to deliver to everyone's needs without incurring huge costs that everyone must pay for. "
I have lived and worked in Ireland, England and the US. Ireland and England have national healthcare, and the US has private healthcare. I can assure you that American healthcare has sent me boiling mad far more often than govt. healthcare. Because its based on profit, not looking after the sick. In Ireland and the UK, you dont spend your first half-hour talking to the financial people. Its a long conversation, but I have experienced the US private system myself, and seen others experiences with it, and the US system is a financial freakout. Its a complete and total mess that freaks people out at a time when they are most vulnerable. Basically, the people who enrich themselves off your health crisis take full advantage to scare/blackmail you into paying whatever they want you to pay/what they know you can pay.
In Ireland and the UK, you walk in, you get treated, and you walk out. In the UK, they do have a cashier's office - if you need a taxi, they will pay you some $ for one.
Yes, the voter pays. But without the sweat, scares, fear, anger, and all the rest of the emotional crap poured on by the private corporations to scare you into paying up. And their collection agencies. And their external providers, each of who comes in to say hello and tack on another $100 fee for doing absolutely nothing. And so on.
If you think the private system is great - live in a foreign country with govt. healthcare and see the difference. Not Somalia - one in Europe. If you go to the UK even as a tourist, they will patch you up for free. Gratis. No questions asked. Just go in, see a doctor, and leave. You might or might not be asked for a small co-pay.
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"Regarding social security, you are demanding people pay into a system"
I'm demanding that everyone is entitled to the dignity of an old age where they arent begging on the streets to live. People are more than worn-out horses to be sent to the glue factory when their usefulness is done. This point is lost on you. I know that. Respect for the elderly is a thing of the past.
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"
As for minimum wage, dude, really? Being told you can't work if you cannot produce labour of X value or greater isn't oppression to you? You think businesses don't pass the costs of that price floor back to the consumer somehow? If it's such a good idea, why not $100/hr? Or a $1000?"
Price is set by supply and demand. If the cost is passed to the consumer, the consumer will not purchase the product and the business will collapse. The issue here is not about anything else other than who gets paid how much of the profits. When a CEO awards himself a bonus or a multi-million wage increase, right-wing apologists never ask how much of that will be passed on to the consumer. No. Its only if the people making the burgers get another $1 an hour that that particular question gets raised.
The answer is that management needs to stop taking such a large share of the worker's labor and return more to the worker. If the management is so greedy as to say "no, I cant take any less to pay my workers better", then and only then will the cost be passed to the customer. And as I said, he does that at the peril of losing his customers.
The reality is that the 1% are taking from their workers, they are taking from their suppliers, and they are taking from their customers. Thats how they get richer and richer every year. By screwing everyone else involved. Customers, Suppliers, and Workers.
Its not that (Customers+Suppliers+Workers) = fixed% of the profits, and that to increase one, the other two must be shortchanged. NO. The big problem is that (Customers+Suppliers+Workers) is getting an increasingly small % of total profit, with management taking a bigger and bigger portion every year.
Minimum wage is effectively a form of redressing this balance such that the 90% get higher wages and thus consume more and grow the economy. Currently, too much of the wealth is locked up in vaults and is not circulating in the hands of real people. THIS is why the economy is in the situation it is in.
If you doubt me, look up Henry Ford's words on paying wages. Ford realized that paying his workers better made him wealthier. Todays leaders have lost that concept. So instead of gaining a middle class, we are losing it.
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FInally, I plan not to respond to any further replies, because I do have a day job, and this is already too long a conversation. You have said your piece and I mine.
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But to reiterate the important point here: "b) you still haven't shown how any such systems has a right to rule others without consent."
If you have the power, you rule others. There is no right to do so. There is just the power to do so.
Religion is just one more tool with which people can develop power over others. Fortunately today, people can walk away and laugh at this. Religion is the Emperor without clothes. When you quit playing the game, they have no power over you any longer. To walk away from economic power is also possible, but not completely. But you can certainly lessen its power by going "off grid" and dealing with your neighbors through barter and work exchange. Did you know that you are subjected to $1,000 of marketing each year? Thats a lot of programming you have to overcome, but it can be done. Ultimately, like free healthcare, that $1000 comes back from your wallet. Except it didnt heal you of an illness, but gave you one.
Take your power back and quit giving it to them by falling into their games and manipulation.
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Wow. A 9 comment rebuttal full of logical fallacies...
all your comments on all land being owned are false @sardonyx. If it was true public land wouldn't exist today. Nice strawman. Abolish the state, and millions of acres of land become available for homesteading.
I note you ignored my comment on corporations only existing because of government protection. In an actual free market system, corporations would collapse due their malfeasance and the massive increases on competition. Because of this, any comment on how corporate enterprise corrupts government is moot. The former cannot even exist without the latter.
I'm glad you accept there is no right to rule. Power to rule is immaterial, only one's consent to be ruled matters.
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Ps: I know the divine right to rule is nonsense. Unfortunately, there is no other justification around for forcing someone to act without consenting to that action.
Also, re voting, it doesn't matter how you vote unless you are in the top 10% of society (Google: corruption is legal in America, there is a video that explains the evidence and cause) . They are the ones who decide if an action happens via the corruption you and I despise.
Finally, you seem to assume socialism can work. If so, explain Venezuela, Mao's China, Soviet Russia, the early days of the Jamestown colony in Virginia, and all the other forms of socialism that failed spectacularly.
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(1) Communism cannot work on large scales, because it interferes with individualism. It works spectacularly at the small scale - as with families, the Apostles, and Kibbutzes. Communism is not socialism, and if you define it to be so, then I do not argue for that form of socialism. I argue for the European model. Denmark would be a fine example.
(2) Venezuela failed for several reasons. Socialism there replaced right-wing government, which had utterly destroyed the economy and was close to collapse. Google "caracazas". So right-versus-left - neither has a great success in Venezeula. Several years ago, the right-wong won landslide majorities in parliament, and things got worse, not better.
Why? I'd like to say the extra rightwingishness of the govt.; but the real answer is the same as for why Chavez failed. Their economy lives on oil, and they are subject to the whims of the world price of oil and on the goals of the oil companies. Chavez nationalized the oil, so the oil companies set out to break venezuela. Also, the media there is controlled by right-wing media corporations. There is no doubt that the corporations can break any nation on the planet that they choose to. Fall in line or else. Also, the corporations rule America, so America sets out to break those nations too - look at the various embargoes designed to do just that. Simply put, its a full-scale war between the capitalists and anyone who defies them. Examples are made. Happened in America also. America today is the history of a broken people who have been beaten into submission by the corporations. So its a long story, and one that you are just going to dismiss, so why do I bother? According to you, Denmark is a failed state - it has to be, because its socialist. Venezuela today is better than it was when Chavez took over. According to you, it was better under the right-wing dictatorship. You are so caught up in your labels and prejudice to see the facts.
The overriding reality is that Venezuela prospers or fails in response to the price of oil and the cooperation (or otherwise) of the powerful elite. In Europe, the elite cooperate, so socialism works.
Jamestown? I think that failed because it was based on corporatism. "Jamestown was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 (O.S., May 14, 1607 N.S.),[3] and was considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610."
Either that or it failed because of malaria and isolation.
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OK, seeing as your replies were short so I can reply without spending hours, I'll reply:
(1) If all public land (available for hiking, and in many cases exploitation, by private individuals, not Yellowstone, I admit) were owned by private individuals, there would be no room for homesteading. Ted Turner does not allow homesteading on his ranch. There would be a one-time bonanza during which the billionaires would buy up all public land, and then it would be locked up. There would be no "homesteading". Not unless the state decided to allocate it in lots of 10 acres max per individual. Even then, within a generation it would all be bought up by conglomerates. What "public land" means is that we still have lots of areas where you and me can visit, and our children, and our children's children. Move this to private hands and you would be limited to moving on public highways only. Because the land is public, in theory the state CAN make it available for homesteading. If it were private, nobody would ever do that.
Open up the Ted Turner Ranch, or shadier, less public figures ranches, and homestead there. See if private land favors homesteading.
Your belief that corporations would disappear if the state disappeared is nonsense. That is, unless you believe that with the collapse of the state, all laws would be abolished and that rioters would burn and loot the corporations with impunity. In fact, what would happen is that the corporations would make their own private laws and hire mercenaries to enforce those laws. Like they did during the days of the robber barons.
Your consent to be ruled is irrelevant. If you do not consent, history shows us that you will be killed in a nasty and brutal way by your overlord as an example so that their serfs dont get fancy notions about freedom.
Basically, we have moved from a system where roving bands of well-armed men looted and stole from villages, to one in which they paid a "knight" protection money so he and his buddies would not loot, just take taxes - a system easier on both parties - a system that has continued to today, when roving bands of police officers imprison or shoot anyone who bucks the system - The system is quite subtle today, and complex, with serried ranks of people getting kickbacks - judges, politicians, think-tank leaders, you name it, but the alternative is that the police are disbanded and the likes of Donald Trump will simply throw you off your land and build a golf course (read up on "michael Forbes Trump". The "rule of law" is there to avoid violence, not to avoid thievery by the powerful. The major difference is that today you get a vote, whereas 1000 years ago you did not. If you fail to use it, you are voting to give away your power. So quit whining that the system is rigged; we all have the power if we use it. The general problem is that we do not use it. Power to rule is the ONLY determinant. Your consent is meaningless except regarding your spending power (miniscule) and your vote. Weakening your vote just makes you worse off.
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Regarding Venezuela, when it became socialist, things became rapidly better. You just do not know about the right-wing government that preceded Chavez. Its because things got better for the majority that Chavez got huge landslide victories at the polls. The people LOVED Chavez. Not the rich and internet-savvy people, but those who got their own houses, food, schooling and healthcare for the first time.
Last December, a right-wing government came in, and since then, things seem to have taken a nose-dive.
However, Venezuela is not the example to follow - its fortunes follow oil prices. Regardless of govt, things go up when oil prices go up and things go down when oil prices go down.
The REAL examples are Singapore, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, and to a lesser extent, Germany, France, the UK, Canada and Australia. All of these have govt. healthcare, govt. safety nets, govt retirement schemes, and in some cases, (mainly singapore), govt-owned businesses.
Compare those with America. Not overall wealth (GDP), but MEDIAN wealth, life quality, and happiness scores.
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By the way, Soviet Russia and Maoist China were communist dictatorships - tyranny never works because it breeds resentment and uniformity of thought. Doesn't work. And Oligarchy, coming to a USA near you soon, will fail and collapse for the same reason. People do not like being kept down.
When Russia became capitalist, it imploded. Thats why people in Russia love Putin today - because they are hankering after the "good old days" of Soviet-era Russia. Collapse of Russian government gave rise to the Russian Mafia and billionaires looting the old state companies for their private gain. This wasn't due to "statist power" - it was due to a collapse of statist power and a change to quasi-anarchy. The kind that most here seem to adore.
Recent changes in China have improved things greatly. China is no longer quite so cummunist, but is socialist. Living standards are improving by leaps and bounds. Because the people have freedom, not tyranny.
Your mistake is in equating dictatorship communism (the only way in which communism can work in large countries, because people will fail to agree in large numbers, so force needs to be imposed for communism to work) with democratic, free-market socialism.
Having social security and govt. healthcare makes life better for the average person, not worse. Thats why any country that has either of these cannot abolish them, because the people would lynch anyone to tried to do so.
Living with the stress that if you lose your job you lose your healthcare and food supply is too stressful for a society to live with. A stressed society is a depressed society is an unproductive and resentful society. It breeds crime and terrorism. Thats why America is the homicide capital of the civilized world.
If you hate govt. move to Somalia. They have none. If you have a gun, you do not need to pay taxes. Enjoy.
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(1) That state land is only there because it wasnt all given away 200 years ago. If it had been, there would be no public land to give away today. I was referring mainly to agriculturally productive land in reasonable climates with a water supply and near a communications network.
(2) I ignored your remark for a reason. Its an assumption about an hypothetical that is highly unlikely to ever come about. Long before Union Pacific defined corporations as people, there were robber barons. These people monopolized production and hired their own police force to beat up their own workers to force striking workers back to their work. Your chicken and egg remark is therefore more of an unprovable red herring than anything else.
(3) Being ruled does not require consent. Never has.
The question is whether government is better than what went before - fascism, the east india company, tzarist russia, living under the mongols, the holy Roman empire, where the church ruled by burning...
I think we have it better today - and in countries where we have more government - Norway, Sweden, Denmark - the people answer polls saying that that they are very happy - more so than the people in America do.
But ultimately, the question is not yes government or no government - but what laws we pass and how our government operates. Its not government size that counts - its its quality.
Like you, I am for small government - but only if that gives most people a better life. Not as an ideological requirement.
We need to eliminate government that harms and to create/increase government that helps.
Eliminating government from a country is like eliminating management from a company.
It might be good in some ways, but it could be disastrous in others.
It's not really something that can be decided by cliches.
Does a cooperative have management? I guess - its managed by the workers. Is that big government or small government? So labels and cliches are not useful.
What matters is doing what works and eliminating what doesnt.
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