[ExI] Cephalization, proles--Where is government going?

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 12:53:01AM +0200, Mirco Romanato wrote:
> Il 11/05/2011 05:08, Rafal Smigrodzki ha scritto:
> 
> > ### I used to believe that a government is unavoidable for protection
> > purposes and as little as 7 years ago I argued against
> > anarchocapitalists on this list but since then I have moved on.
> 
> Do anyone know exaples of anarchocapitalists (or simple libertarians)
> moving to the other side?

Me.  I was strong libertarian, flirted with anarcho-capitalist, am now
social democrat.  A friend of mine was generally libertarian, became
what he jokingly calls "communist", probably social democrat, over the
Bush years.  Carl Milsted, of
http://www.holisticpolitics.org/ and
http://www.quiz2d.com/
went from standard libertarian to some variety of left-libertarian, with
e.g. land value tax and basic income.  "Liberty *and* equality".
RPG.net has some, though I couldn't name specific names, as well as
people still otherwise conservative who support universal health care.

> From what I understand the probability of an anarchocapitalist to
> change his mind is much lower than the probability of someone else to
> become one.

I have no idea if it's true, or if it's more or less true than for other
extreme positions, like total planned-economy advocates.

> So, or we are intractable lunatics or we understand something others
> don't understand and we can not ignore.

Well, in my case, I had a strong sense of Moral Clarity, much like Rafal
and Samantha exhibit today.  Coercion Was Wrong.  But I always had some
nagging doubts about feasibility, with regard to national defense or
environmental protection.  My change could be summed up as "I stopped
handwaving and hoping for convincing solutions in the future, and
instead viewed them as fundamental problems you need government or
coercive social norms to solve".  Moral purity is useless if you're
dead.  Another key open question was about the initial allocation of
property, consideration of which is I think how Milsted turned
left-libertarian, and certainly is a factor for me as well.  Once you
view private property as somewhat tainted in the real world, that Moral
Clarity about the rights of billionaires to not be taxed for starving
children evaporates.

-xx- Damien X-)