SouthernShao

But you don't need government in its current form in order to protect people from groups who mean to poison. I don't need a cop to protect me from a home invader, for example. In fact, the cop isn't going to get there until the invader has done whatever they sought out to do, so maybe just to try to find them after myself and my entire family are murdered.

OR I can protect my family myself.

The act of poisoning someone is in itself objectively immoral. No good people who accept responsibility for the innocent in this world should be made to suffer the will of those who seek to do that kind of harm. In fact I would argue that the government likely was deficient in what they SHOULD have done to combat the poisoning done at that time.

In my view, if 5 people are producing food (simplifying things here) and they choose to poison that food and I and some of my goodly companions find out about it, we are completely within our right to use immediate and, if necessary, deadly force against those individuals. The idea should be simple: If you want to attempt to kill people, we will find and kill you.

The good must not suffer the evil to exist, and I say that as both an staunch atheist and someone not even in favor of the death penalty (but only because I do not want even a single person killed who wasn't guilty.)

And you talk of businesses as if they are real people, and they're not. A business is just this made-up human idea, and an extremely broad one at that, where we're explaining swaths of people all working together to produce some kind of goods/services under the idea of generating wealth for everyone. The idea that a company can own property for example is nonsensical. A company can own property like my car can own property, or like a sidewalk can owe me money.

When a business I work for does something nefarious, I guarantee you that I didn't lift a finger to see that come to fruition. I was duped by others who made those choices who defrauded me by not detailing what was going on. THOSE people who did those things are criminals and should be dealt with. The notion that a company for example can do something that say, results in the murder of 10 kids isn't an "oopsies" where the state fines that business. The mere fact that this is how we deal with these things "collectively" is seriously messed up. The people responsible for making choices they knew were risky for people's health that then resulted in the death of those kids should be tried and convicted of murder and locked away forever, and I don't need a huge, overarching government that I didn't consent to in order to make that happen.

And I agree with you - governments like what we have here in the US are a hell of a lot better than they've been in the past. I'm not saying I want to live in Stalin's Russia, or under the iron fist of Genghis Khan here. What I'm saying is both logically and philosophically, the next direction we as human beings should be guiding the world to is a place where there is no such thing as victimless crimes; where everyone can live their lives the way they choose and where the only time a relative force monopoly flexes its power is to prevent things like murder, rape, theft, and fraud.

You build a coalition who needs some money from me and will protect me better than police and I'll gladly pay for that, but do you know what that would be? A business, not a government. You could argue that it'd be a government if it were a force monopoly, but so what? So long as it's consensual and works, I'm all for it.

When I say I'm anti-government what I'm talking about is being against people using violence against us against our will and not in defense of the innocent.

Like what, exactly?

Like roads? Police? Schools? How's about grocery stores?

Let's talk about grocery stores. Government in the US does not "do" grocery stories. The free market does (I say free with a bit of a grain of salt, of course.)

And there are no problems with food in this country. In fact, we live in a country of such overabundance of food that we have foodstuffs coming in the world over, and throw away roughly 65 billion tons - TONS, annually and have a weight epidemic.

The market is SO GOOD at food that it creates overabundance issues. Everywhere you look, food is available. I have like 20 grocery stores near me. I can get most of them to deliver right to my door. There are restaurants, fast food chains, diners, food in gas stations and rest stops, at kiosks, airports, on flights, at hotels, parks, on mobile trucks, and so much more.

Any argument you might propose could fundamentally be explained, at least at a high-level, by showcasing this concept. The government COULD have done food and then we would be having this same conversation, but you might say, "if there is no government, then we will all starve! Who will do food?"

But the government does not do food and I bet you if they did, we would have fewer options, food would be of lower quality, and food would cost more than it does today. Everything, and I will reiterate that - EVERYTHING the government does it does worse than the market can do.

Shipping? The U.S. Postal Service typically hemorrhages between 6.5 and 9.5 billion annually, and it has a MONOPOLY on certain aspects of shipping. FedEx and UPS on the other hand? They generate collectively over 180 billion in annual revenue. BOTH are on the fortune 500 list.

And how could we ever get all of these Amazon shipments without the government? Oh, wait, they don't ship those either. Amazon sends shipments more accurately, with less waste, quicker, AND CHEAPER than USPS does, hands down, and it isn't even a primary shipping company!

Or what about police? Security? Do rich people use police, or private security? Well of course they buy private security, but you and I can't afford private security, so we rely on the police showing up after we've already been robbed, whereas the rich - in their gated communities - have mobile security keeping a constant watch for them.

But why is private security so expensive? Well, because the government regulates it so firmly. They want to be a monopoly on policing and security.

Same goes for education. Where do the rich send their kids? Public school? No? Private? Well of course they do!

Obama went to Punahou, a private college-prep school in Honolulu, and Biden too, went to a private Catholic high school - Archmere Academy. So why can't we send our kids to these better schools? Oh that's right, cost.

So why can't Jeff Bezos just create Amazon Academics, and provide higher quality education at a lower cost than the governmental-run public schools? Well, because of government regulation, of course!

Imagine I was a millionaire and I wanted to invest in starting a business of educating K-12 students. Maybe I have a goal of setting down in a minority, impoverished area and providing high-quality education at a low price. How do I do this if the competition school that runs on stolen funding (taxes) doesn't close down no matter how poorly they do?

In one of Chicago's lowest-performing high schools for instance, the dropout rate reaches 36% (3% is the average across the rest of the state.) So what if I could create an educational program there with a dropout rate of say, 13%? TWICE as superior simply based around that single statistic.

Well it wouldn't be possible because the government self-subsidizes without producing anything of value. I, as owner of a business, would need to produce value to consumers who want to pay for my services, but the government mandates your kids go to public school (especially if you can't afford anything better), then sets all sorts of rules and regulations on me that itself doesn't even have to follow, and can change whenever it wants!

Imagine I had to create 10 units of value in my school to produce the output for my goals. Imagine now that this other school produces 5 units of value. Nobody would send their kids to the 5 unit school, and it would go out of business - if this were the market we're talking about.

But the state can just continue forcing you to use their school and take your money to pay for its failure, and I'm forced to charge you too much for you to send your kids to my school because of government restrictions and the fact that their school even exists in the first place.

I PROMISE YOU that if government education was weened out across the next 50-100 years and the private sector came in to fill in the gaps, education would improve dramatically and the cost would go down, not up.

Government is fundamentally always the problem because all the government is is a big gun everyone is arguing over (which is what politics is) who gets to wield.

My proposition is that there shouldn't even BE an argument over who gets to wield the gun. The ONLY rational purpose of the gun is to stop people from murdering, raping, robbing, and defrauding, assaulting, etc. That's it.

Just because I didn't type out a 30 page dissertation does not mean my ideas are inchoate. You sound like quite a pompous and arrogant person.

Everyone is getting so close to the correct answer to the correct problem with all of this illegal immigration stuff. I'll explain the problem and solution.

The problem - people say, is that people with different ideas from our own can come into a given government and vote to change the rules. The solution then is that illegal immigration is bad.

The true problem is that there is a given government where you can vote to control other people at all. Do away with that and you did away with the problem. Then anyone can live anywhere they like so long as they do so without violating the will of others (not murdering, stealing, raping, or defrauding.)

Governments are and have always been the actual problem. This isn't complicated.

Look, you can live next door to me so long as you bought my neighbors house with their consent. If you try to attack me or my family in any way, I will defend myself. If you think my not believing in Allah is bad and you want to kill me, I will kill you in self defense. If you think it is bad but won't attack me and my family, we can coexist.

The problem is that if you can come here and usurp an already evil and corrupt system (all governments are this) and use that system to create a law saying that I should be killed because I do not believe in Allah, thus sending government thugs to my home to carry out that deed, that is a massive problem and the culprit is not only you for being evil, but the government for existing in a state in which an evil person can contribute to an evil act of such magnitude, through the hand of the state.

This isn't complicated.

The mere aspect of voting for a ruling class is sinister.

I've actually fought my entire life against the "game" of business. I don't like the lingo, I don't like the corporate nonsense, and I don't like how business in general is conducted. I mostly work by myself. I've simply learned some skills that let me produce value for businesses so they want to give me a paycheck, but even then it's always an ongoing challenge because anyone can be removed from a role at any time and for any reason.

I work high up in large business, so I know how it works.

Let's say you're correct, so what? Let's say I have $10,000 to invest. I notice that the electronics sector is a good place to invest based upon recent trends, so I want to invest there. I do some research and conclude I will either invest in Apple, or Samsung.

If I choose Apple and they give me a 5% return on investment but Samsung gives me 8%, I will invest with Samsung. My money isn't a charity, it's an investment.

I am relying on the company to do the best job that they can to provide me with a return on my investment because I would actually LOSE money on my investment, and if I keep losing money, that would be quite irrational of me to keep investing, wouldn't it?

And if Samsung ends up getting 70% of the investment and Apple only 30%, Apple is going to go out of business, and it should. This would fundamentally mean that Samsung is the superior business in that sector and Apple is doing so poorly that it should not exist.

Investors by the way do not obtain a fixed percentage of profit from a company's income statement. What they receive depends on a myriad of things like earnings through dividends, equity appreciation, interest rates, type of investments, etc.

Publicly traded companies have benefits over private. They for instance, can produce large amounts of money through selling stock or bond issuing, and shareholders being able to easily buy/sell shares gives good data on company value. Private businesses on the other hand often have more limit on raising funds, so it can make it very challenging, if not impossible, for private companies in some sectors to compete with publicly traded ones. Keep in mind it's also more complicated than that.

I can give you an example from my business life as well. About 5 years ago a mid-market business (let's just say around 5 billion in annual revenue) was bought by a private equity firm. The reason was the business was failing. If not for private equity, the business likely would have died.

Through private equity and their investor base, the business is still afloat and doing even better. Private equity was able to invest in the business to make it more profitable, but they don't want to do that with nothing to gain. The goal in that investment is they make enough of a return in the future that they made a profit off the endeavor. It's a risk - the firm could have invested billions only to see nothing but a loss. Do that too often and the entire firm would fail and thus, close.

A lot of terminations were done too, but new people were also brought in and a lot of changes were made.

But without giving to that investment, the business would have failed and 100% of its employees would have been without a job. This business currently employs over 10,000 people, mind you.

I would presume this would eventually be the final byproduct, assuming we don't extinct the human species.

Freedom of association is both moral and good.

This isn't quite how it works. Generally in medium to large businesses - meaning at least a billion a year in annual revenue - oftentimes how it works is a given business unit (BU) will be given a budget. This is usually based on analysis and projections based on the previous fiscal years as well as projections on growth goals.

The VP of that BU will need to spread that budget across their unit as best they can. This will include everything from promotions to new hires. Keep in mind that it could cost a business $160 an hour to hire one full time employee who only makes $50 an hour, all things depending. In many roles, it can take a year or more to get a new hire up to speed in their new role. At $160 an hour, that's $332,800 against your budget and that first year will not recoup 100% of the potential output of that new hire who will likely not be putting out their fullest until around a year or more, so you're looking at what more or less accounts to over a quarter of a million just to train a new employee for one year so they can start putting out the same level of work as someone of their level should be.

Then consider if you're an international company. The business I work for for example is in 60 different countries. All of those countries have different regulatory practices that require a lot out of the HR business unit(s). Some countries have regulatory requirements that force the business to utilize software that can account for those regulations that cost millions annually and aren't even very good, but there isn't a good alternative, so it's either pay that or fall out of compliance, which is not really a viable strategy.

If you have 100 employees in your unit and you want to give them all a 3% annual raise but you're not given a larger budget unless you grow that side of the business (in other words, you self fund), then where are you getting that revenue stream from?

In many cases you have to set up projects yourself from the top-down, such as requesting from your directors that they begin brainstorming ways to generate revenue. This could be through efficiencies, for example. If you were a director in HR for example, maybe you want to take a look at your team's processes and see what could be automated. That project alone requires expertise, and those kinds of analysts aren't cheap. Then you need engineers to perform the automation, which are also not cheap, and you need a surefire return on investment there because the end goal might be to free up 25% of your team's labor through automation of their current processes, but you may not see a return on investment for 2 years, then by the third year the return isn't even enough to hire an additional 3 people, let alone give an entire team of 100 a 3% raise.

So you might argue then, "well why can't the business just give that BU a larger budget?" And there are a few answers. I won't list them all here, but some examples would be is there something your team could be doing to increase their value to warrant taking budget from elsewhere to funnel into your team? Or every year is it just expected that 3% of the budget go into the employees without an ounce of those employees providing any additional value? To seriously simplify, if the business makes $100 and they pay $50 to their employees and $30 to their shareholders and $20 is reinvested in the company, why should the business pay the employees 60%? HOW do they pay them 60%? They have to take it from the shareholders or the reinvestment, and take too much from the reinvestment and your competition will put you out of business, and take too much from the shareholders and they will invest with your competitors - see the problem?

Many employees don't understand that they have to increase their perceived value to warrant more, and few do.