The Ancap-Ancom Divide.

[Norstal]

You have a right to USE WHATEVER YOU THINK IS WORTHWHILE.

IF OTHER PEOPLE DONT WANT TO, THEY DONT WANT TO.

But you don't. It's determined by the market. Whatever currency is valuable will be used by the majority of vendors. It's not a fucking right anymore than you have a right to food.

[Sibirsky]

1. That's not what (s)he said.

Taxes work well, in making us worse off.

2. What the fuck are you talking about? "Potential offspring" are just that. Potential. They are not real and do not get to restrict anyone else's rights. If/when (s)he decides to have children it would be a good idea to stop smoking, but still none of your fucking business.

3. You ok? You sound like you need help. You, the government or anyone else has no right to force anything into his or her body. Get over it.

1) Intentions =/= outcomes, taxing carbon footprints gives a market incentive to not pollute so that sustainability is a profitable and legal way to avoid tax.

2) No, parents don't have the right to damage their children, it is my business to defend the rights of those that cannot defend themselves. Off hand smoke alone is reason enough to debunk the fact that it is purely a personal choice and doesn't effect anyone else. It is my business if I'm being effected by it and the environment I live in is being effected as well. Regardless of what we do to act on it, or if we act at all, it is my damn business.

3) The moment it starts affecting people other than yourself, you cannot claim bodily sovereignty as the end all be all.

1. No shit. Except that your kind seems to only look at the intentions of politicians while completely ignoring unintended consequences.

2. Off hand smoke? What?

Unless you are in an enclosed space with the smoker, it is none of your business.

3. See 2.

[Ripoll]

If you're going to quote an article, link to it.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is an idiot.

Fiat money is currency which derives its value from government regulation or law. The term derives from the Latin fiat ("let it be done", "it shall be").[1] It differs from commodity money and representative money. Commodity money is based on a good, often a precious metal such as gold or silver, which has uses other than as a medium of exchange, while representative money is a claim on the commodity rather than the actual good.[2][3][4]

The first use of fiat money was recorded in China around 1000 AD. Since then, it has been used continuously by various countries, concurrently with commodity currencies.

First of all wikipedia is not the end all be all source, second of all Government is a human institution, law is a human institution. Currency only has value because we put trust in it, Gold only has value because we put trust in it.

Government - a system of which a state or community is governed. Many an archist have said that anarchism does not exclude Government, it simply excludes the power of state. Authority is essential to the preservation of freedom.

I'm also fairly positive that Gobry is smarter than you are.

[Divitaen]

I think the OP's question creates a very interesting dilemma, that is that motive and ends are different concepts. The prescribed solution for the world's problems, as given by both anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists, is to abolish or heavily limit the state's influence, and we will see everything else work out. The problem is how things work out. Anarcho-capitalists think everyone's voluntary exchanges will create a perfect, unlimited free market that is free of arbitrary state distortions. Anarcho-communists believe communities will align alongside a Paris Commune kind of collectivist society, ensuring equality without the presence of a government. So while the OP is correct in saying that both sides essentially want the same thing, he is also in a fundamental way wrong because both sides have very different conceptions about what will happen if the state is abolished, and the "what will happen" question is very important in any ideology because in ideologies different schools of thought may have similar solutions but different ideas about the effects of those solutions.

[Sibirsky]

When you raise taxes on cigarettes, smokers spend more on cigarettes and that leaves them less money for everything else. They are worse off, and so are the businesses that they had to curb spending on, to pay for the more expensive cigarettes.

They produce less carbon by producing less goods.

Uh, actually tax increases cause people to smoke less. Smoking rates decline.

And they begin to use renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions as it becomes more costly to produce carbon. Market incentives.

So every smoker quits when taxes were raised? Why do we have Big Tobacco and smoking then?

That's not a market incentive. A some industries would still have problems with this. Although I suspect such industries to decline in number, we may depend on them for some time, and killing them is not the right approach.

[Ripoll]

1) Intentions =/= outcomes, taxing carbon footprints gives a market incentive to not pollute so that sustainability is a profitable and legal way to avoid tax.

2) No, parents don't have the right to damage their children, it is my business to defend the rights of those that cannot defend themselves. Off hand smoke alone is reason enough to debunk the fact that it is purely a personal choice and doesn't effect anyone else. It is my business if I'm being effected by it and the environment I live in is being effected as well. Regardless of what we do to act on it, or if we act at all, it is my damn business.

3) The moment it starts affecting people other than yourself, you cannot claim bodily sovereignty as the end all be all.

1. No shit. Except that your kind seems to only look at the intentions of politicians while completely ignoring unintended consequences.

2. Off hand smoke? What?

Unless you are in an enclosed space with the smoker, it is none of your business.

3. See 2.

No, I'm aware of the unintended consequences of many Government policies such as rent control and the like. However, the incentives of carbon footprint taxes give directly are far more beneficially to the society at large than the unintended consequences of such.

You're arguing on the behalf of Austrian economics which is a school of thought that has been criticized and discredited to death. You're also looking at this in black and white.

All smoke pollutes the environment I reside in, it's my business.

[Divitaen]

Uh, actually tax increases cause people to smoke less. Smoking rates decline.

And they begin to use renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions as it becomes more costly to produce carbon. Market incentives.

So every smoker quits when taxes were raised? Why do we have Big Tobacco and smoking then?

That's not a market incentive. A some industries would still have problems with this. Although I suspect such industries to decline in number, we may depend on them for some time, and killing them is not the right approach.

Not every smoker, but an increase in price decreases the quantity of cigarettes that are smoked.

[Atlanticatia]

Uh, actually tax increases cause people to smoke less. Smoking rates decline.

And they begin to use renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions as it becomes more costly to produce carbon. Market incentives.

So every smoker quits when taxes were raised? Why do we have Big Tobacco and smoking then?

That's not a market incentive. A some industries would still have problems with this. Although I suspect such industries to decline in number, we may depend on them for some time, and killing them is not the right approach.

Not every smoker, but a good amount. If the price goes up, demand goes down. Obviously, not by 100%, but every time taxes have risen smoking rates have fallen.

It's a price signal. Higher prices of carbon mean that using renewable energy (and investing in it) will be more profitable for a company then continuing to use carbon, at a certain point. It's not killing them, it's forcing them to change.

[Ripoll]

Uh, actually tax increases cause people to smoke less. Smoking rates decline.

And they begin to use renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions as it becomes more costly to produce carbon. Market incentives.

So every smoker quits when taxes were raised? Why do we have Big Tobacco and smoking then?

That's not a market incentive. A some industries would still have problems with this. Although I suspect such industries to decline in number, we may depend on them for some time, and killing them is not the right approach.

So unless you get rid off alllll the cigarettes, it's not worth doing at all?

[Sibirsky]

Who said anything about waiting for decades?

Businessmen and women are not stupid, as much as you claim them to be, and would work on technologies ahead of time because that would make them money.

I never claimed they were stupid, and I am actually very conservative when it comes to economical matters and policy. But simply put, the market motive/profit motive is not enough to reverse climate change at an effective scale, and state involvement in this matter would do more good than harm if done properly.

Also you cannot possibly know how fast the market can self correct itself, sometimes economies have been brought to ruin before the correct, sometimes they correct in less than a month. Sometimes recessions effectively cleanse waste, sometimes all they do is prevent future growth. but in reality climate change has nothing to do with markets and corporations are rational economic actors, most of which don't really specialize in sustainability.

You implied they were stupid, numerous times. Why else would they wait for decades before working on new technology?

The profit motive is enough. Evidence suggests that people care about the air they breathe (shocking, I know) once basic needs are met. Which is why developed economies tend to have cleaner air than industrial but developing economies. People want clear products, once they have their basic needs met. The solutions is more economic freedom, since that is what drives growth.

Recessions do not prevent future growth, they facilitate that by getting rid of the waste and misallocated resources.

[Threlizdun]

Property is violence obfuscated by illusions of choice and imagined freedom. Those with property use it to enslave those without and call it "voluntary". We have millions of people today "voluntary" starving and billions living in poverty in service to those illusions.

Dont ancoms believe in personal property?

Or can I take your computer because it is shared?

Humans produce goods. The goods I produce are mine.

Personal property yes, though "property" as an abstract idea in anarchism and as Natapoc was addressing refers private property, which no form of anarchism allows. You may of course own possessions such as computers and the like, and have the right to real property such as that which you work. However, you cannot go and declare the means of production to belong to you, as that is depriving from others what is essential for labor and their wellbeing. Social property belongs to all; for a single individual or small group to claim it as their own and deprive it from all others is theft and extortion. When Proudhon famously declared property to be theft, this is what he meant. This is an essential notion to anarchism, and why it is diametrically opposed to capitalism. You can still support what you believe in, but calling it anarchism is dishonest, even if unintentionally so.

[Sibirsky]

You have a right to USE WHATEVER YOU THINK IS WORTHWHILE.

IF OTHER PEOPLE DONT WANT TO, THEY DONT WANT TO.

But you don't. It's determined by the market. Whatever currency is valuable will be used by the majority of vendors. It's not a fucking right anymore than you have a right to food.

(S)he obviously meant that different actors have a right to use whatever they want, and that it should not be mandated through legal tender laws.

[Nameless Revolt]

So why all the infighting? We are friends are we not? Our common enemy is the state. Without it, we are free.

First I would like to admit that I have a rather lacking knowledge of "anarcho-capitalism", I have only ever come across this strain of thought on the internet, and when I first came across it I assumed that it was a "clever" satire of anarchism. I have no interest in reading into an "ideology" that makes a mockery of the way I view and live life.

I feel that this is the sad but expected consequence of the degradation of anarchism into an ideology as a result of thought being separated from action. It is at this point of separation, and the reification of revolutionary theory, that anarchism loses its liberatory revolutionary potential and becomes a mere political theory to be intellectualised, identified with, commodified and vulgarised by such a swindle as "anarcho-capitalism" that can only even be considered in the realm of abstract thought absolutely separated from accompanying praxis. That is not to say that all of anarchism has degraded in such a way, there are still hundreds of thousands of people among the exploited and oppressed who are creating there own insurrectional life projects to claim back their own lives while destroying the social order that chains them. Then there are millions and millions more, who, while not knowing anarchist theory or even knowing the word anarchism, live a life of revolt.

That Ancaps understand anarchism as simply meaning 'anti-state' or some such principle is enough to dismiss it. If anarchists fight against all that dominates and exploits us, if we fight against the commodity-economy in which we sell our lives through wage-slavery only to buy back small, commodified portions of our own product in order to survive (along with the spectacles that sooth our resignation to survival sickness), if we fight against the lie of private property that has denied us our own world and transformed it into the realm of borders, limits, prices, and laws that has imprisoned us, if we fight against a "social peace" based on violent coercion and organised exploitation, if it is all this and more, that tension towards anarchy, then to say "we both want to destroy the state, we are friends", from the mouth of a capitalist, is the most absurd statement and one that I despise.

The idea of sticking the word "voluntary" on any-and-everything and therefore determining that it must be freedom is simply inane.

The notion that an anti-capitalist movement will hold hands with its bourgeois misappropriation is nonsensical.

I don't want to say that "anarcho-capitalism" isn't anarchism, since it is not my desire to claim ownership over the word or develop any sort of "ideological purity", but I will say: I recognise Ancaps as my enemy.

Since it is a purely ideological aberration it is enough simply to ignore it and perhaps call it out when it raises its head.

[Ripoll]

I never claimed they were stupid, and I am actually very conservative when it comes to economical matters and policy. But simply put, the market motive/profit motive is not enough to reverse climate change at an effective scale, and state involvement in this matter would do more good than harm if done properly.

Also you cannot possibly know how fast the market can self correct itself, sometimes economies have been brought to ruin before the correct, sometimes they correct in less than a month. Sometimes recessions effectively cleanse waste, sometimes all they do is prevent future growth. but in reality climate change has nothing to do with markets and corporations are rational economic actors, most of which don't really specialize in sustainability.

You implied they were stupid, numerous times. Why else would they wait for decades before working on new technology?

The profit motive is enough. Evidence suggests that people care about the air they breathe (shocking, I know) once basic needs are met. Which is why developed economies tend to have cleaner air than industrial but developing economies. People want clear products, once they have their basic needs met. The solutions is more economic freedom, since that is what drives growth.

Recessions do not prevent future growth, they facilitate that by getting rid of the waste and misallocated resources.

Yea, austerity measures used to facilitate economic cleansing worked out really well in europe. They cleansed a whole 3 times in less than a decade. Come on, even milton friedman acknowledges that cutting spending and letting the market naturally asses itself is not useful in times of recession.

I get that austrian economics is appealing because of it's presumed simplicity, but economics isn't simplistic. Anything that deals with human behavior is not simplistic or black and white.

Also many corporations often tend to think in the short run and like to extract all the opportunity available from any kind of economic boom. Hence fracking and the like, the incentive to plan ahead is not great enough to reverse climate change or it already would have been done. It's a combination of market incentives and Government incentives, and acknowledging the importance of Government =/= idiotic statist Government official who undermines the importance of the individual. The two are not mutually exclusive.

[Conglomerate of Iron]

Dont ancoms believe in personal property?

Or can I take your computer because it is shared?

Humans produce goods. The goods I produce are mine.

Personal property yes, though "property" as an abstract idea in anarchism and as Natapoc was addressing refers private property, which no form of anarchism allows. You may of course own possessions such as computers and the like, and have the right to real property such as that which you work. However, you cannot go and declare the means of production to belong to you, as that is depriving from others what is essential for labor and their wellbeing. Social property belongs to all; for a single individual or small group to claim it as their own and deprive it from all others is theft and extortion. When Proudhon famously declared property to be theft, this is what he meant. This is an essential notion to anarchism, and why it is diametrically opposed to capitalism. You can still support what you believe in, but calling it anarchism is dishonest, even if unintentionally so.

Let me get this straight....

The means of production cannot be owned....

So I cannot own seeds? Or an axe? Or a computer to write things? Or a sowing machine?

All these things are means of production. They produce things.

And who would enforce these arbitrary rules? You woulf have to make a stste to stop me from making clothing and food.

[Sibirsky]

If you're going to quote an article, link to it.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is an idiot.

First of all wikipedia is not the end all be all source, second of all Government is a human institution, law is a human institution. Currency only has value because we put trust in it, Gold only has value because we put trust in it.

That article has 31 references.

Government - a system of which a state or community is governed. Many an archist have said that anarchism does not exclude Government, it simply excludes the power of state. Authority is essential to the preservation of freedom.

Authority is detrimental to freedom.

I'm also fairly positive that Gobry is smarter than you are.

Personal attacks, how cute. That Gobry person claimed that every currency is fiat. Demonstratively false.

[Divitaen]

Dont ancoms believe in personal property?

Or can I take your computer because it is shared?

Humans produce goods. The goods I produce are mine.

Personal property yes, though "property" as an abstract idea in anarchism and as Natapoc was addressing refers private property, which no form of anarchism allows. You may of course own possessions such as computers and the like, and have the right to real property such as that which you work. However, you cannot go and declare the means of production to belong to you, as that is depriving from others what is essential for labor and their wellbeing. Social property belongs to all; for a single individual or small group to claim it as their own and deprive it from all others is theft and extortion. When Proudhon famously declared property to be theft, this is what he meant. This is an essential notion to anarchism, and why it is diametrically opposed to capitalism. You can still support what you believe in, but calling it anarchism is dishonest, even if unintentionally so.

I get that this is the essential part of left-wing anarchism, but I've always been curious how far the "means of production" go. I mean arguably computers are capital goods that help increase productivity. And does this mean I cannot own a tractor, or even a printer?

[Conglomerate of Iron]

So why all the infighting? We are friends are we not? Our common enemy is the state. Without it, we are free.

First I would like to admit that I have a rather lacking knowledge of "anarcho-capitalism", I have only ever come across this strain of thought on the internet, and when I first came across it I assumed that it was a "clever" satire of anarchism. I have no interest in reading into an "ideology" that makes a mockery of the way I view and live life.

I feel that this is the sad but expected consequence of the degradation of anarchism into an ideology as a result of thought being separated from action. It is at this point of separation, and the reification of revolutionary theory, that anarchism loses its liberatory revolutionary potential and becomes a mere political theory to be intellectualised, identified with, commodified and vulgarised by such a swindle as "anarcho-capitalism" that can only even be considered in the realm of abstract thought absolutely separated from accompanying praxis. That is not to say that all of anarchism has degraded in such a way, there are still hundreds of thousands of people among the exploited and oppressed who are creating there own insurrectional life projects to claim back their own lives while destroying the social order that chains them. Then there are millions and millions more, who, while not knowing anarchist theory or even knowing the word anarchism, live a life of revolt.

That Ancaps understand anarchism as simply meaning 'anti-state' or some such principle is enough to dismiss it. If anarchists fight against all that dominates and exploits us, if we fight against the commodity-economy in which we sell our lives through wage-slavery only to buy back small, commodified portions of our own product in order to survive (along with the spectacles that sooth our resignation to survival sickness), if we fight against the lie of private property that has denied us our own world and transformed it into the realm of borders, limits, prices, and laws that has imprisoned us, if we fight against a "social peace" based on violent coercion and organised exploitation, if it is all this and more, that tension towards anarchy, then to say "we both want to destroy the state, we are friends", from the mouth of a capitalist, is the most absurd statement and one that I despise.

The idea of sticking the word "voluntary" on any-and-everything and therefore determining that it must be freedom is simply inane.

The notion that an anti-capitalist movement will hold hands with its bourgeois misappropriation is nonsensical.

I don't want to say that "anarcho-capitalism" isn't anarchism, since it is not my desire to claim ownership over the word or develop any sort of "ideological purity", but I will say: I recognise Ancaps as my enemy.

Since it is a purely ideological aberration it is enough simply to ignore it and perhaps call it out when it raises its head.

What if I make my own market community, and we voluntarily make and xchange goods?

We do not mess with you. How are we an enemy?

[Sibirsky]

1. No shit. Except that your kind seems to only look at the intentions of politicians while completely ignoring unintended consequences.

2. Off hand smoke? What?

Unless you are in an enclosed space with the smoker, it is none of your business.

3. See 2.

No, I'm aware of the unintended consequences of many Government policies such as rent control and the like. However, the incentives of carbon footprint taxes give directly are far more beneficially to the society at large than the unintended consequences of such.

You're arguing on the behalf of Austrian economics which is a school of thought that has been criticized and discredited to death. You're also looking at this in black and white.

All smoke pollutes the environment I reside in, it's my business.

That's what happened in Spain, right?

What the fuck does Austrian economics have to do with this? You're just throwing around random terms.

Incorrect. A single cigarette will not pollute the environment for more than, 20 feet around (and above) the smoker. Depending on the wind, etc.

And second hand smoke is basically harmless. It is far less harmful than many products we use, and no one is crying about them.

[Sibirsky]

So every smoker quits when taxes were raised? Why do we have Big Tobacco and smoking then?

That's not a market incentive. A some industries would still have problems with this. Although I suspect such industries to decline in number, we may depend on them for some time, and killing them is not the right approach.

So unless you get rid off alllll the cigarettes, it's not worth doing at all?

That's not what I said.

[Maqo]

When you raise taxes on cigarettes, smokers spend more on cigarettes and that leaves them less money for everything else. They are worse off, and so are the businesses that they had to curb spending on, to pay for the more expensive cigarettes.

They produce less carbon by producing less goods.

On the other hand, everyone is better off because less people smoking means less money spent on healthcare as a society and more money spent on whatever else. Smokes aren't perfectly inelastic: if they cost more, people will buy less.

How would corporations even function then? What right do cashiers have to barter with their company's retail products? Barter is an awful system and this will severely lower demand, hurt business, and cause painful deflationary cycles.

Why do you keep bringing up the fucking barter system? You are the only one to do it.

In free banking, some currency (likely, but not necessarily backed by something) would win out. That's what we would use.

States are generally concerned about allowing multiple competing currencies because of the way that some corporations in the past have utilized company currency as a method of effective slavery, or people otherwise being allowed to refuse transactions as a method of economic coercion.
By instituting a compulsory currency, people are able to interact with any person or business anywhere in the state without being concerned that someone could refuse them.

Even so: if one currency will eventually win out and everyone will end up using that: what is the issue with the government cutting out all the fuss of competition there? Once established and in widespread use, is any one currency even distinguishable from any other? If the US government didn't provide currency and instead some private 'currency company' had won over the entire United States, would it be possible for any competition to that currency to arise?

Sounds like a "You" problem.

Go find some alcohol or a good that is worth something.

But you just said I have the right to use whatever I want as currency. Now suddenly I have problem? Wow, this is sounding like fascism.

Without government intervention, no-one has to accept what you're offering.
Of course, it is possible for you to get by today without using currency. Nothing legally prevents you from trying to buy stuff with rocks - you'll just struggle to find a business that will accept $10 worth of rocks to buy something. You might need to trade $1000 worth of rocks to buy a $10 hamburger, because the girl at McDonalds really doesn't want to spend the next 5 days learning who she can sell rocks to and how to do it. You'd probably be able to trade your iPhone for a hamburger at McDonalds if you really wanted to though.
Having a single currency is far more convenient for everyone - which is why pure barter systems have never actually existed in real life.

[Divitaen]

No, I'm aware of the unintended consequences of many Government policies such as rent control and the like. However, the incentives of carbon footprint taxes give directly are far more beneficially to the society at large than the unintended consequences of such.

You're arguing on the behalf of Austrian economics which is a school of thought that has been criticized and discredited to death. You're also looking at this in black and white.

All smoke pollutes the environment I reside in, it's my business.

That's what happened in Spain, right?

What the fuck does Austrian economics have to do with this? You're just throwing around random terms.

Incorrect. A single cigarette will not pollute the environment for more than, 20 feet around (and above) the smoker. Depending on the wind, etc.

And second hand smoke is basically harmless. It is far less harmful than many products we use, and no one is crying about them.

It's not harmless at all. People can suffer from lung problems as a result of prolonged passive smoking, and in countries where a good proportion of people smoking, I could be forced to suck people's fumes for hours on end in public roads and even offices. I hate it when smokers claim it is "discrimination" to stop them from smoking in public places. People have the right to smoke but not the right to not breathe. I have to breathe the air whether I like to or not, so I should have the right to demand for cleaner air from the people polluting it. It's as simple as that. Air is common property.

[Conglomerate of Iron]

When you raise taxes on cigarettes, smokers spend more on cigarettes and that leaves them less money for everything else. They are worse off, and so are the businesses that they had to curb spending on, to pay for the more expensive cigarettes.

They produce less carbon by producing less goods.

On the other hand, everyone is better off because less people smoking means less money spent on healthcare as a society and more money spent on whatever else. Smokes aren't perfectly inelastic: if they cost more, people will buy less.

Why do you keep bringing up the fucking barter system? You are the only one to do it.

In free banking, some currency (likely, but not necessarily backed by something) would win out. That's what we would use.

States are generally concerned about allowing multiple competing currencies because of the way that some corporations in the past have utilized company currency as a method of effective slavery, or people otherwise being allowed to refuse transactions as a method of economic coercion.
By instituting a compulsory currency, people are able to interact with any person or business anywhere in the state without being concerned that someone could refuse them.

Even so: if one currency will eventually win out and everyone will end up using that: what is the issue with the government cutting out all the fuss of competition there? Once established and in widespread use, is any one currency even distinguishable from any other? If the US government didn't provide currency and instead some private 'currency company' had won over the entire United States, would it be possible for any competition to that currency to arise?

But you just said I have the right to use whatever I want as currency. Now suddenly I have problem? Wow, this is sounding like fascism.

Without government intervention, no-one has to accept what you're offering.
Of course, it is possible for you to get by today without using currency. Nothing legally prevents you from trying to buy stuff with rocks - you'll just struggle to find a business that will accept $10 worth of rocks to buy something. You might need to trade $1000 worth of rocks to buy a $10 hamburger, because the girl at McDonalds really doesn't want to spend the next 5 days learning who she can sell rocks to and how to do it. You'd probably be able to trade your iPhone for a hamburger at McDonalds if you really wanted to though.
Having a single currency is far more convenient for everyone - which is why pure barter systems have never actually existed in real life.

Today the governments manipulate the fiat currencies to control the people. You should not be forced to accept any currency.

And yes, a standardized currency would probably arise. Then there is no problem.

[Sibirsky]

You implied they were stupid, numerous times. Why else would they wait for decades before working on new technology?

The profit motive is enough. Evidence suggests that people care about the air they breathe (shocking, I know) once basic needs are met. Which is why developed economies tend to have cleaner air than industrial but developing economies. People want clear products, once they have their basic needs met. The solutions is more economic freedom, since that is what drives growth.

Recessions do not prevent future growth, they facilitate that by getting rid of the waste and misallocated resources.

Yea, austerity measures used to facilitate economic cleansing worked out really well in europe. They cleansed a whole 3 times in less than a decade. Come on, even milton friedman acknowledges that cutting spending and letting the market naturally asses itself is not useful in times of recession.

I get that austrian economics is appealing because of it's presumed simplicity, but economics isn't simplistic. Anything that deals with human behavior is not simplistic or black and white.

Also many corporations often tend to think in the short run and like to extract all the opportunity available from any kind of economic boom. Hence fracking and the like, the incentive to plan ahead is not great enough to reverse climate change or it already would have been done. It's a combination of market incentives and Government incentives, and acknowledging the importance of Government =/= idiotic statist Government official who undermines the importance of the individual. The two are not mutually exclusive.

And what the fuck does Europe's fake austerity have to do with anything? Again, you are just throwing around random terms.

Austrian economics has nothing to do with this.

Corporations have a problem with this, only when they are unstable.

[Conglomerate of Iron]

That's what happened in Spain, right?

What the fuck does Austrian economics have to do with this? You're just throwing around random terms.

Incorrect. A single cigarette will not pollute the environment for more than, 20 feet around (and above) the smoker. Depending on the wind, etc.

And second hand smoke is basically harmless. It is far less harmful than many products we use, and no one is crying about them.

It's not harmless at all. People can suffer from lung problems as a result of prolonged passive smoking, and in countries where a good proportion of people smoking, I could be forced to suck people's fumes for hours on end in public roads and even offices. I hate it when smokers claim it is "discrimination" to stop them from smoking in public places. People have the right to smoke but not the right to not breathe. I have to breathe the air whether I like to or not, so I should have the right to demand for cleaner air from the people polluting it. It's as simple as that. Air is common property.

Well on your property you can ban smoking.

Many transportation companies would ban smoking on their property to get rid of customer complaints.

Same with other businesses.

Are you saying people cannot smoke on their own property?

But this is way off topic. So lets let this die now.