Well the the "big" and "small" in this context are (what i call) replacement terms. In other words there terms adopted by the mass of people to present an idea. People use"big" is use to say the government intervenes alot. well "small" is to say it hardly intervenes

A good size faction of the country is programmed to dislike “big govament”, but don’t think much beyond lower taxes, letting the industries they’re employed by do whatever the fuck they want, and disliking any other governmental restrictions that effect them personally.

It sounds like you mean "more permissive laws" then. (That's my answer too, but I don't like to vote in my own polls until there are enough votes that I'm not biasing future votes by my first vote).

Those who argued it was "small" argued that it would replace a bunch of complex, expensive, and labor-intensive means-tested programs with a one simple, low-overhead, easily-automated program. Those who argued it was "big" seemed to mostly arguing against any kind of taxation to fund welfare services (and seemed to think that this would mean a lot more taxation),

I will have to emit that I never heard those arguments before. Great now i have to figure out what they mean all over again.
When it comes to politics I try to take the other peoples terms and put them in terms that is more specific. That way there isn't this ambiguity. Which is the problem your trying to solve with this poll.
So to be "big" and "small" government does mean anything because I try to be more specific than that. Soory I wasn't any help.

Governments, in essence, are tax farms, which claim for themselves the unique prerogative to initiate force and invade private property, and use their monopolistic privileges to sustain themselves. This is in distinction from private service providers, which are subject to the discipline of the market; i.e. they must continually satisfy the wants of their consumers in order to survive, and accrue their revenue by voluntary transactions.

Usually, the concern over 'big' government takes place within the context of economics. Keynesians are said to believe in 'big government' because they want the State - through its instrument, the central bank - to have a large amount of influence over the monetary system, whereas the Austrian school believe in 'small government' because they want a free market in money (which means no central banks). Progressives are in favour of 'big government' because they want higher taxes and more 'public services', conservatives are in favour of 'small government' because they want fewer regulations and lower taxes.

But, there are all sorts of ways in which progressives want less government than conservatives, particularly on social issues, like drug use and prostitution. In fact, I don't find the distinction between social and economic authoritarianism particularly helpful. The reason why it is objectionable for a person or group of persons to dictate to me which substances I may put in my body is the same reason why it is objectionable for those same persons to impose a confiscationary levy upon me. Social and economic issues are really inseparable, because all activity, whether we see it as 'social' or 'economic', requires the use of scarce resources, and therefore is determined by the relevant property rights.

What makes one government 'bigger' than another is the degree to which it initiates force and invades people's justly held property. But, since all governments claims for themselves the prerogative to use force in ways that it locks the rest of us in cages for doing the same, all governments are too 'big'. To see why, you need only ask yourself this question: Are the ways in which the State uses force permissible? If 'Yes', then everyone should be able to act similarly, in which case the State is a rights-violator for locking us in cages for doing so. And if 'No', then it is also a rights-violator, for it is engaging in the very kinds of activities which we recognise that people should not be able to engage in.

Governments, in essence, are tax farms, which claim for themselves the unique prerogative to initiate force and invade private property, and use their monopolistic privileges to sustain themselves. — Virgo Avalytikh

No, governments offer that situation to an electorate who mandate it. Take up your concerns with your fellow voters.

This is in distinction from private service providers, which are subject to the discipline of the market; i.e. they must continually satisfy the wants of their consumers in order to survive, and accrue their revenue by voluntary transactions. — Virgo Avalytikh

No, again. Private service providers can manipulate markets using overt or effective monopolies, use rewards or even direct bribery to encourage laws which provide them with income indirectly (revenue on tax breaks for example). They can also create situations (such negative equity, monopolising property, to stretch the meaning of the word 'voluntary' to its absolute limit in terms of transactions.

Social and economic issues are really inseparable, because all activity, whether we see it as 'social' or 'economic', requires the use of scarce resources, and therefore is determined by the relevant property rights. — Virgo Avalytikh

I don't think anyone thinks social and economic issues are separate, do they?

What makes one government 'bigger' than another is the degree to which it initiates force and invades people's justly held property. — Virgo Avalytikh

Define 'justly held property'. Here you are again spending your valuable free time repeating the same trope, but avoiding responding to the arguments already levied against it.

Are the ways in which the State uses force permissible? If 'Yes', then everyone should be able to act similarly, — Virgo Avalytikh

Yes, absolutely, and everyone else can use force in exactly the same way. Get a mandate from the people over whom you're exercising that force to do so, back that mandate up with a constitution built on at least a couple of hundred years of reasonably successful society, fight off any other groups wanting to do things differently. That's the 'way' in which the state uses force, and as far as I can tell there's absolutely nothing whatsoever preventing you from doing the same.

A large problem with "democracy" is that as people get the additional freedom that a democratic styled government allows...they start to want more and more. In effect, they start to want license.

In a perverse way, a democratic styled government seems eventually to lead to anarchy.

We have this republic only insofar as we keep it.

Advocating for anarchy is not a good way to "keep it."

It's the perception of the government and public attitudes in the society towards the government that define just how "big" or "small" it is.

For example, in the American discussion usually a huge part called the "Armed Forces" is left out of the whole conversation as even the hard core libertarians accept that there has to be an armed forces. Even if they are 'citizen soldiers'.

No, governments offer that situation to an electorate who mandate it. Take up your concerns with your fellow voters. — Isaac

A frequent defence of the State's legitimacy is that its legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed. There are a number of problems with such a view. In the first place, consent is the act of an individual (nobody can consent for me), and it is an act which an individual undertakes with her own property. Consent is nothing other than the exercise of a property right. One can only authentically consent with that which is one's own. You might consent to being governed, but this does not justify the State's use of force against me.

So, in order to to bear out the claim that the State's use of force against me is legitimate, it must be argued that I really have consented, if only implicitly, to being governed by them. But this claim is far more difficult to defend than it is to assert. It requires us to commit ourselves to one of a number of views on ownership, all of which seem to me to be indefensible.

One option would be to maintain that the governed territory is simply the State's own private property. By residing within the territory, I am implicitly consenting to being governed, and am now subject to all of its statutes. But what reason is there to think that this particular territory is owned by these specific people, whom we recognise as our 'government'? Certainly, there is no purely historical justification for this, since all of the governments of our acquaintance were born of invasive conquest. It might be suggested that the State owns the territory because it has a legal right to it. But this would clearly be a circular argument. Since the State is the institution responsible for producing the law, we must presuppose its legitimacy in order to believe that its pieces of paper are adequate to afford itself (or anyone else) a rightful claim to some article of property, in such a way that mine, say, do not.

Moreover, this view is quite incompatible with the view that State derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Suppose that the governed populace, or a large portion thereof, decide to withhold their consent. On whom is there a burden to leave? If the government’s legitimacy really does derive from the consent of the governed, then there is a burden on the government to disband or to leave. If, however, the government owns the territory, then the burden is on the populace to leave. This shows that government cannot be understood as a private property owner, if one also wishes to maintain that the government’s legitimacy derives from our consent. The two views are incompatible.

The second way in which I might be said to consent implicitly to being governed is if I am residing on the private property of some other, non-governmental entity, and this other entity has explicitly consented to the government’s terms, by contract for example. By extension, I, too, am subject to the government’s terms. A consequence of this view is that the government’s legitimacy derives from relatively few private property owners. Government, in turn, protects the monopolistic and oligopolistic ownership privileges of the landed class. This view, needless to say, is unattractive for all except those who belong to the landed or governing class.

Such a system is objectionable to many on the left and the right. For those on the left, such as Marxists or left-liberal egalitarians, it is objectionable on the grounds that private property is itself illegitimate. For those on the right, such as right-libertarians who do recognise private property, it is objectionable on the grounds that, as a matter of history, the landed class probably do not have a rightful claim to the land in question. In all probability, the present state of land-ownership is owing to a history of aggressive conquest and entrenched government privilege, rather than peaceful productive transformation.

The third (and, by my reckoning, final) way in which I might be said to have consented implicitly to being governed is if the territory is jointly owned by all the citizens. Each citizen owns an equal and infinitesimally small share in the territory, and has an equal say in how it is to be put to use. What becomes of the territory is therefore determined by whatever result this collective decision-making process yields. If a majority of the citizenry wishes to erect a government then that is the rightful outcome. Those who do not wish to be governed have not had their rights violated, for they have exercised their right of partial ownership and have simply been outvoted.

The burden of this view is to explain why a particular group of people comes to jointly own a particular territory; that is, why the boundaries, ‘national’ boundaries, are drawn precisely where they are, and on what basis 'citizenship' is determined. Why, for instance, should territorial boundaries, or citizenship criteria, not be other than they are? The reason why the boundaries and citizenship criteria are what they are is because that is how they have been defined by States themselves. So, again, this position would be circular. Since we are discussing the preconditions of a legitimate government, we cannot assume the prior existence of governments which ‘gerrymander’ territorial boundaries so as to exclude those whom it wishes from the voting pool.

So all of these views look unconvincing. However, if none of these views obtains, then it looks to me as though there is no sense in which I have consented to being governed. In which case, the State's use of force against me is indeed coercive and illegitimate.

No, again. Private service providers can manipulate markets using overt or effective monopolies, use rewards or even direct bribery to encourage laws which provide them with income indirectly (revenue on tax breaks for example). They can also create situations (such negative equity, monopolising property, to stretch the meaning of the word 'voluntary' to its absolute limit in terms of transactions. — Isaac

Notice that these privileges, which may indeed be totally corrupt, are government-granted services. The State is both a coercive monopoly and the preeminent bestower of monopoly privileges, precisely through the mechanisms you have enumerated. Regulatory capture, lobbying, exclusive franchises and bribery are profitable precisely because the facility exists for them to be profitable. I go into more detail on this in my own thread.

I don't think anyone thinks social and economic issues are separate, do they? — Isaac

Textbook progressives tend to be more economically authoritarian and conservatives tend to be more socially authoritarian (though, there are exceptions in both cases). The very idea of the 'political compass' is that it is possible to be consistently authoritarian on social issues, and libertarian on economic issues, or vice versa. But such a view is highly suspect, if we understand social and economic freedom both to be functions of property rights. In my experience 'big government' is a term more frequently employed in the context of economics. But not a lot hinges on this issue.

A small government would be the sort of night-watchman state proposed by libertarians and minarchists, where a minimal state is required to defend the rights, properties and freedoms of its citizens.

What makes a government small is the deregulation and dissolving of state power and bureaucracy.

The size of the government is not that important.

It ain't the meat it's the motion.

A frequent defence of the State's legitimacy is that its legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed. There are a number of problems with such a view. — Virgo Avalytikh

How are you defining 'legitimacy'? Legitimate just means allowed by law, but since you reject the authority of law I don't see how we can proceed without you being more clear about what criteria need to be met for something to be 'legitimate'.


Yet again I note you've completely dodged the issue of what constitutes legitimate private property, only giving examples of what you think it's not. Also, you've convenient ignored the simplest challenge to your position. You are indeed completely free to do exactly as the government does.

We can have a discussion, but I'm not prepared to just be lectured at on your prepared talking points only. If you want to address the fundamental issues we can proceed.

state proposed by libertarians and minarchists, where a minimal state is required to defend the rights, properties and freedoms of its citizens. — NOS4A2

Who is proposing that a state do anything else?

Who is proposing that a state do anything else?

Statism takes many forms. Many believe the state should also intervene in economics, the environment, and even private life.

Many believe the state should also intervene in economics, the environment, and even private life. — NOS4A2

Yes, but not at random. Only to defend the rights property and freedoms of its citizens.

Economic interventions defend rights to employment, sufficient income, and rights to property. Environmental interventions defend rights to clean air, sustainable supply of basic needs. Private life interventions might protect the rights of children or neighbours.

I suspect what you mean is that some people disagree with you about what rights and freedoms people should have, or can you give an example of a government intervention which is universally agreed to be nothing to do with rights, property or freedom?

Yes, but not at random. Only to defend the rights property and freedoms of its citizens.

Economic interventions defend rights to employment, sufficient income, and rights to property. Environmental interventions defend rights to clean air, sustainable supply of basic needs. Private life interventions might protect the rights of children or neighbours.

I suspect what you mean is that some people disagree with you about what rights and freedoms people should have, or can you give an example of a government intervention which is universally agreed to be nothing to do with rights, property or freedom?

By “defend rights” I mean with state force. For instance the police would defend someone’s property rights by protecting him from thieves, or the police would defend someone’s free speech rights by protecting him from a violent mob, and so on.

No, I don’t consider your version of rights to be human rights at all, but merely wants and desires.

No, I don’t consider your version of rights to be human rights at all, but merely wants and desires. — NOS4A2

Right, so as I said everyone sees government as defending rights, property and freedom. Its just that you disagree with others about what those rights and freedoms are. Since there's no objective authority to defer to with regards to rights and freedoms we must resolve these differences somehow so that we can live together with a minimum of fighting, yes?

The best way we've found to do that so far is democracy, yes? So the government we have is the one resulting from a system which you entirely agree with. It's your fellow voters who are your problem, not your government.

Right, so as I said everyone sees government as defending rights, property and freedom. Its just that you disagree with others about what those rights and freedoms are. Since there's no objective authority to defer to with regards to rights and freedoms we must resolve these differences somehow so that we can live together with a minimum of fighting, yes?

The best way we've found to do that so far is democracy, yes? So the government we have is the one resulting from a system which you entirely agree with. It's your fellow voters who are your problem, not your government.

Of course, plenty of my fellow voters believe the government has a duty to provide for their wants and desires, and they often call these “rights”. Hence the big bloated bureaucracies and cradle-to-grave infantilization of entire populations.

Of course, plenty of my fellow voters believe the government has a duty to provide for their wants and desires, and they often call these “rights”. — NOS4A2

You call your wants and desires "rights" too, that's the point. Do you think your "rights" come from somewhere other than what you want/desire?

You call your wants and desires "rights" too, that's the point. Do you think your "rights" come from somewhere other than what you want/desire?

What I mean by “wants and desires” is that proponents of positive rights believe it is someone else’s duty to provide them with things they want and desire, for instance housing, healthcare, a livable wage. They believe it is someone else’s duty (a state) to interfere in their life. What I am speaking about are so-called negative rights, which is essentially someone else’s duty to not interfere in my life.

But yes, it is my desire that states should not interfere in our lives.

What I am speaking about are so-called negative rights, which is essentially someone else’s duty to not interfere in my life. — NOS4A2

I think the distinction between positive and negative rights is spurious and usually just a rhetorical trick to make some rights sound more 'default' than others. The positive right to housing is just the negative right to not die from exposure. The positive right to health care is just the negative right to not be left to die.

Your 'negative' rights to free speech is just a positive right to say what you want.

So you're agreeing that your list of "rights" are no more objective than any other.

So given that we all disagree about what rights we think a society ought to provide us, we use democracy to decide, right? So you don't have a legitimate complaint against the system. You simply disagree with the majority of people about your list, but (unless you're authoritarian) you agree that democracy is the best way of resolving that difference. So everything is fine and nothing need change, right?

I think the distinction between positive and negative rights is spurious and usually just a rhetorical trick to make some rights sound more 'default' than others. The positive right to housing is just the negative right to not die from exposure. The positive right to health care is just the negative right to not be left to die.

Your 'negative' rights to free speech is just a positive right to say what you want.

So you're agreeing that your list of "rights" are no more objective than any other.

So given that we all disagree about what rights we think a society ought to provide us, we use democracy to decide, right? So you don't have a legitimate complaint against the system. You simply disagree with the majority of people about your list, but (unless you're authoritarian) you agree that democracy is the best way of resolving that difference. So everything is fine and nothing need change, right?

Yes, I disagree with statism and statists nearly across the board, except for maybe the night-watchman idea. But no, as a matter of conscience I refuse to say everything is fine when a government demands by threat of force that I give what’s mine so that it can distribute it to others. So unless you believe a government should steal and plunder from its own citizens, I do not see how one can say this is fine and not evil. The fact that most people want this kind of authoritarianism does not suggest that I need to accept it.

You simply disagree with the majority of people about your list, but (unless you're authoritarian) you agree that democracy is the best way of resolving that difference. — Isaac

The fact that most people want this kind of authoritarianism does not suggest that I need to accept it. — NOS4A2

So you don't agree that democracy is the best way of settling that difference?

Just because you want that type of authoritarianism doesn't mean we have to accept it :razz:

So you don't agree that democracy is the best way of settling that difference?

Just because you want that type of authoritarianism doesn't mean we have to accept it :razz:

No, I do agree. Their choices should be implemented because of democracy. What I don’t agree with is their beliefs, arguments, and decisions. Those I cannot accept.

There might be some benefit to letting statism play itself out. It still has the opportunity to prove one way or another it’s pros and cons.

I notice that “simpler/fewer laws” is leading in the poll, and I want to ask the people who picked that a question to make sure they understand it right: would you say that a government with a single rule, “obey all commands from the monarch”, is a “small” government? Because that’s very few and very simple laws; it’s just not a very permissive law.

I refuse to say everything is fine when a government demands by threat of force that I give what’s mine so that it can distribute it to others. — NOS4A2

Is it moral for you to be in possession of what you designate "mine"?

If you acquired what you call "mine" by way of the market, then:

1) A market is informed by market forces.
2) Market forces are informed by human desires.
3) Some human desires are amoral or immoral.
4) Therefore, market forces are informed, in part, by an amoral or immoral element.
5) Therefore, a market is informed, in part, by an amoral or immoral element.
6) Therefore, what was acquired by way of the market may be in your possession only in light of something amoral or immoral in the structure of the market.

A small government would be the sort of night-watchman state proposed by libertarians and minarchists, where a minimal state is required to defend the rights, properties and freedoms of its citizens. — NOS4A2

And with that the state intervenes nearly everywhere.

Many believe the state should also intervene in economics, the environment, and even private life. — NOS4A2

Like you as above. If a state upholds the rights of all individuals/citizens, then that intervention happens in all of those areas in some way or another. How much is the real question. And how much intervention comes from the question what are the rights of the citizens.

Like you as above. If a state upholds the rights of all individuals/citizens, then that intervention happens in all of those areas in some way or another. How much is the real question. And how much intervention comes from the question what are the rights of the citizens.

Well yes, even a small night-watchman state is a form of statism. But the fact that a state “intervenes nearly everywhere” is no argument that it should.

3) Some human desires are amoral or immoral.
4) Therefore, market forces are informed, in part, by an amoral or immoral element — ZzzoneiroCosm

Logical fallacy. It is still possible that all market forces are informed only by moral desires! Praise Xenu!

Logical fallacy. It is still possible that all market forces are informed only by moral desires! Praise Xenu! — fdrake

Haha.

Caught me.