Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Tobin Tax. Anyone want to help me build the Tobin Tax website?
by
niemivh
on 08/07/2011, 19:34:06 UTC
Just to show the absurdity of this argument I've created the following mad-libs below.  They are not a perfect comparasion, but I believe they get the point across.

If you don't like a multi-national corporation raping your country then start your own multi-national corporation.  Everyone who thinks it's a good idea will join it.  Other's won't unless you force them to.  We'll then let people figure out how great your multi-national corporation is.

Those examples are all way too broad to even debate with. What does raping refer to exactly? Strip mining and polluting someone's water? If  a national corporation does this, then this is actually a role for government to protect property rights in my opinion.

If you want to live in a country that it's a global empire then start your own country.  Everyone who thinks it's a good idea will join it.  Other's won't unless you force them to.  We'll then let people figure out how valuable living in a country that isn't a war all the time is.

There is a very obvious logical fallacy here, and that is that in order to have a global empire in the first place, you must apply force. This same thing applies to those other examples you posted.

If people of good will and upstanding moral character abandon the use of force do you think that people of ill-will will follow suit?  The role of government is a role of force through a system of law.  The abandonment of force means turning over the keys of government to those only of ill-will.  And that's presently the system we have.  Some may like it worded in the old axiom "if force is outlawed only outlaws will use force".

In order to have a global empire in the first place it does require force.  But it also requires force to dismantle it.  Is being a proclaimed pacifist enough while your labor is taxed from you and used to wage wars and sustain a global empire?  Does that make you a pacifist?  Does that make you a non-user of force?

This whole argument of force is such a semantic journey into linguistical never-neverland.  What we should be talking about is what is good and moral and how we determine what is and what isn't.  I promise you it's a more intellectually stimulating argument.  Maybe that's why so many of the classics focused on morality.

These "arguments" (examples using the same template as an earlier user made) are obviously absurd, that was their intent.  Were you also so quick in pointing out the absurdity of the original argument of me making my own exchange?  Is so, I didn't see it.  

In addition I can't just choose not to be subject to what happens on the stock market.  It has a massive influence on all our lives either directly or indirectly. Hence my wish to use "force" to reform it.

[As a correction: the corporation, planet and culture arguments wouldn't necessarily require 'force' as other examples would.]