Response Requested From Libertarians/Market Anarchists

[Braddogg]

non-profit organizations will still exist.

That's the key.  Ask him if a majority of people care about the handicapped.  If he says yes, then great!  The people who care will throw $10/week into a pot and take care of this guy.  And if he says no, then how can a democracy, by its own moral standards, force the citizens to pay for it?

[TylerM]

Private organizations help more people that the State ever does. In fact, the state usually hurts efforts to help people. I'm reminded of the Food not Bombs programs getting shut down and their members arrested.

[error]

Adaptive technology for the disabled is prohibitively expensive because of government programs to "help" them. Were it not for the government interfering, people who really are unable to work would be a lot better off.

[srqrebel]

I think I would have been one of those spoon-fed people if one teacher didn't send me off the wall in hatred of the public education system. I guess the only missing key for me is reading a lot. The public education system was the first thing that made me blow up, and I'm very comfortable debating with anyone about that. On the other topics, I guess its just that I don't know as much. Thanks.

On another topic, the guy I referred to in the other post has no reply, but just more questions to find holes in anarchism. Here they are:

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Try to imagine an individual born with spastic cerebral palsy. This person has such a severe disability that s/he will never be competitively employable the right part-time job is possible with the right accommodations/technology. Furthermore, this person will only be able to participate in education through specialized (read expensive) instruction combined with dedicated (low sales volume) technology.

How can providing services to this person ever be profitable?
How is this person better off without a State?
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I can't think of much of answer to this, just that the market will find a way without government interference, and that non-profit organizations will still exist.

You are welcome! 

The one book that I always recommend more highly than any other, is 'Sic Itur Ad Astra' by Andrew J. Galambos.  (The title is Latin for "This is the way to the stars".)  The book itself is written in clear English, and is both deep in its content and very easy to understand.  It is over a thousand pages, and costs around $100, but in my opinion is worth more than its weight in gold.  I cannot stress enough the value of the knowledge contained in this volume.  In fact, I have a standing offer to anyone who purchases and reads it in its entirety, if they do not agree that it was well worth its purchase price, I will personally pay them $100 cash for their copy, provided it is presented to me in good condition.  I have never had any takers, and I am confident that I never will.  My copy has become my most valued and guarded possession.  Sic Itur Ad Astra is available at Amazon.com, and you can Google it as well.

The latest objection presented by your antagonist is covered brilliantly by AJG in Sic Itur Ad Astra.  Galambos refers to such objections as "lifeboat case" scenarios.  He uses the example of a quadriplegic stuck in a lifeboat out at sea -- who will help him in a world where everyone is responsible only for themselves, and there is no personal gain in helping him? 
I don't have the book with me currently, so I can't refer to it; but what I remember gleaning from that discourse is that first of all, once a naysayer starts resorting to lifeboat case scenarios, he is getting backed into a corner.  In other words, by resorting to rare and/ or unlikely scenarios, he is by default illustrating that the more popular problems have been adequately covered, and he is now just nit-picking.  The other thing that I recall from Galambos' discourse on this subject, is that we are not talking about utopia here.  Despite it being a popular misconception, no one is claiming that a free market based civilization is a perfect world.  What we are saying, is that the free market is far more effective and efficient at providing solutions overall than the cumbersome, force-backed monopoly that is the current system (the State).

[LiveFree]

Not to sound like a cold hearted prick (which I am, in many respects...)  but isn't that called evolution?

[Braddogg]

Not to sound like a cold hearted prick (which I am, in many respects...)  but isn't that called evolution?

Sure.  But biology doesn't make morality or ethics, and that's what we're talking about.  And as far as natural selection goes, it doesn't matter if the guy with severe cerebral palsy lives for a day or for 80 years, because his disorder is not genetic.

[sandm000]

Roads?  Where we're going we won't need roads


But seriously.Why not make the roads private?  In New Jersey, people are completely willing to drive around toll roads paying $0.25 for every 10 miles or so.  Also you could sell the best advertising space right along the edge of your road, or all the spaces between stoplights (on non-highway), or like the Mass Turnpike guarantee limited competition by offering fewer exits thereby taking an increased rent from the renters of rest area frontage.  There are many ways the problem could be solved, and I'm sure I couldn't think of all of them.

[Dreepa]

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Try to imagine an individual born with spastic cerebral palsy. This person has such a severe disability that s/he will never be competitively employable the right part-time job is possible with the right accommodations/technology. Furthermore, this person will only be able to participate in education through specialized (read expensive) instruction combined with dedicated (low sales volume) technology.

How can providing services to this person ever be profitable?
How is this person better off without a State?

Who said it had to be profitable?
Ever do something for nothing but the good feeling you get?

I am sure you can come up with the amount of $ that people give to charity in the US.  Now what if everyone's income went up 40% because of the the taxes taken out?  The average person would give even more to charity.

[Braddogg]

I am sure you can come up with the amount of $ that people give to charity in the US.  Now what if everyone's income went up 40% because of the the taxes taken out?  The average person would give even more to charity.

Dr. Paul Schervish, professor at Boston College, agrees.  (Full disclosure: I was his research assistant, through the Center for Wealth and Philanthropy, which he heads, from 2003-2004.)  He said that the end of the estate tax would lead to a substantial increase in charitable giving.