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Nukes etc, another approach?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Just wondering what everyone thought of some anarcho-capitalist thinking on nukes etc...
Basically, states, groups etc, purchase insurance contracts which give them the right to call in a nuclear strike on anyone who nukes them first. The cost of this is minimal compared to the cost of researching, developing and maintaining your nukes, and you get all the protective benefits...
Plus it'd give all those poor Russian missile crews a new income...
Basically, states, groups etc, purchase insurance contracts which give them the right to call in a nuclear strike on anyone who nukes them first. The cost of this is minimal compared to the cost of researching, developing and maintaining your nukes, and you get all the protective benefits...
Plus it'd give all those poor Russian missile crews a new income...
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The generation growing up in that world would be called Baby Kaboomers.
:cool: the future's so bright I just gotta wear shades...
I think this idea is bollocks.
Most countries couldn't afford it and would be at risk, unless we work through the UN etc but we could do that anyway.
What about the insurance companies, what happens if they go bust, it would be a disaster!
And it does nothing to deal with terrorists who can't be nuked in return.......
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe5.html
For Life, Liberty and Property
I have read some stuff by Nozick and the like whiuch is quite good, but I suspect these guys are jokers........
The problem is that having no state is not 'freedom' (in my mind at least) also as an economics student I feel someone should tell them that free-markets have lots of problems which is why govt intervention is required to make it work better.....
The society they want would be truly awful, there are ideas are entirely impracticable..........
In an anarhco-capitalist society, even private individuals could own nuclear weapons.
Actually the major of libertarians believe in a state, albeit one of limited scope.
Precisely, it is all lovely and theoretical but do we want that? Surely not.........
Wonderful! Now everyone has an equal right to blow up a small city. Call me cynical if you like, but I don't think that private ownership of nuclear weapons is a good idea. Presumably, anarcho-capitalist thinking would be that everyone also has the right to own biological and chemical weapons as well, which is also not a good plan. Remember the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway? How much more often would that kind of thing happen if anyone could legally get access to sarin, VX, anthrax, etc.
I'm not fully sure of how an anarhco-capitalist society would work. Even still I don't like anarchism; be it the leftist variety or this.
As far as I can see it wouldn't.
Either all the risks we are preotected form by the state would cripple society or the risks would be fended off through giant insurance schemes that would also cripple society..........
BTW Aren't the taxes we pay a form of insurance premium against healthcare costs, fire, crime, military action?
But the state surely does not have to have THAT great a role in regulating market share, does it?
That will depend on the extent of the imperfections in the market. If you are a hardline classical economist, you would say that the free market is perfect, government intervention is counter-productive and therefore anarcho-capitalism is a great idea. If you are more to the Keynesian end of the spectrum, you would say that markets don't work, and that the government needs some level of involvement in a huge range of markets, which implies a large government presence.
Besides, it's not just market share. Some goods theoretically will never be produced by the private sector, and others will not be produced in the correct amounts (from the point of view of society), unless the government steps in with taxes and subsidies. As an example, think of a manufacturing plant that puts out a lot of pollution. The plant owners don't have to consider the full cost of the pollution (e.g. health costs dealing with increased incidence of asthma), but society as a whole does. The plant will therefore produce more than if the owners actually had to consider the true costs of production to society.
Note to self, next time try to sound less like a crusty old economics professor
it is a good one though, not all tax is a 'burden' on capitalism, much of it can be 'corrective' tp put right the flaws........
There are obviously equity issues in any such debate, if one puts a value on equality of any kind then as a rule less govt control = more inequality (within a capitalist framework) Personally i see that as a bad thing and support govt intervention to reduce inequality, others may disagree though.........
Look, I can't help it, I've been studying economics for far too long, and it's already begun to have long-term side effects. It'll get you too, sooner or later...