The Free Market Hates Monopolies

The other night I was talking to some friends about the free market. One of the objections that they brought up (and that is often brought up when discussing the free market) is "but what about monopolies?" This is a valid question, and a concern that many share. The answer that I gave at the time seemed unsatisfactory to me, which was to just assert without much backing the statement, "Monopolies cannot be sustained without the help of the State." This is my belief and my intention in this post is to defend it with actual arguments.

Let us consider the case of Jan. Jan is stupendously rich. She has decided that she wants to have a monopoly on potatoes to enable herself to raise their price and exploit all the people who want potatoes. Thereby, she hopes to expand her vast fortune to even more lofty heights and eventually to be able to bathe in molten, potato-fueled gold.

The free market presents a host of steep obstacles to stand in the way of Jan's goal.

Obstacle 1: Supply and Demand
The first obstacle that stands in Jan's way is basic supply and demand. This law of economics states (among other things) that when demand for a thing increases, the price of that thing will increase and the supply of that thing will increase [1].

What this means is that as Jan begins to purchase potato farms in bulk, she is drastically increasing the demand for potato farms. This will increase the price of the farms, and consequently will give large incentives to people that own land to turn that land into potato farms; because that will enable them to sell their land for inordinate sums of money to Jan.

This is a huge barrier for Jan, since each potato farm she buys will be more expensive than the last, and the number of potato farms will skyrocket as people realize that Jan will buy them for crazy sums of money. This makes it very unlikely that Jan will be able to buy enough potato farms to make it matter before she runs out of money, no matter how much money she started with. It also makes it unlikely that the mountains of gold that she expends on purchasing potato farms will ever be returned via the means of their exploitation.

Obstacle 2: The Competitor
The second obstacle that stands in Jan's way is her competitors.

Let's say that Jan has managed to largely overcome the "Supply and Demand" barrier, and has bought enough potato farms that she has a huge majority market share. She is now using her evil market-share superpower to increase the price of potatoes dramatically, causing money to flow like the liquid gold of Erebor [2] into her pockets. With this new influx of wealth, she is attempting to buy out any farm that threatens to compete with her before it can become a problem.

This situation is extremely unstable, and won't last for long. Here's why: As the price of selling potatoes is rises far above the price of producing potatoes, and as Jan begins to enjoy this massive influx of wealth, other people will see this. It will create further incentive to create new potato farms (which will further aggravate the "Supply and Demand" barrier), and it will create a huge incentive to undercut her.

Because potatoes from Jan's empire are very overpriced, a competitor that has a small market share will have a massive opportunity to increase his market share and profits by offering potatoes for a more reasonable price. All it would take for her paradise of exploitation to start it's inevitable decline into dust is for one competitor to refuse to sell his farm to her and instead insist on undercutting her. And many will want to do so as the opportunity to carve massive market shares for themselves out of the lumbering, gold-filled corpse of Jan's potato empire is just too tempting.

Obstacle 3: The Substitute
Let's say that Jan has managed to overcome both of the aforementioned obstacles. She has either out-competed, bought out, or allied with every other potato producer in the world to create the ultimate potato cartel. Let's even say that this cartel owns every acre of land that could be used to produce potatoes, so there is no opportunity for new potato farms to appear.

No potato is created without Jan's say-so. No potato is sold without her signature on the contract. She has declared herself the Potato King and has scheduled her first molten gold bath. Surely such a cartel cannot be undermined! Surely there must be intervention, for no more perfect potato monopoly could exist!

Not so! Introducing, an amazing substitute, the radish [3]! You have no more need for potatoes, for you can now eat these amazing roots. Cook them and you will find that they are indistinguishable from potatoes for most uses. And only 1/2 the price!

Or perhaps feast your eyes upon the Potatonator 5000! This specialized device allows potatoes to be grown for 1/2 the going price in environments that were formerly inhospitable to them!

... You get the point. Even an extremely unlikely monopoly such as this one is unstable. As potatoes rise in price, people will have strong incentives to find or invent substitutes for them, and to find or invent new innovative ways to get potatoes.

This is another thing that is dictated by the law of Supply and Demand. As the price rises, the demand falls. It falls because less people can afford potatoes, and more people buy substitutes. These substitutes and new technologies will be able to out-compete the potato cartel unless the cartel starts selling potatoes at competitive prices. This very phenomenon is currently in progress in NYC, as Uber is out-competing the existing taxicab monopoly [4].

But what about the historical examples?
Most historical "monopolies" that you learned about in school gained tremendous market share by out-competing their competitors. These so called "monopolies" drove prices down into the floor, and didn't raise them back up again. The only monopolies that have been able to successfully drive prices up have been backed by State power [5].

As you can see, in a free market it is very hard for a monopoly to form and remain stable for any significant amount of time. The obstacles are just so ... vast. And even if a monopolistic firm does arise, it will be short lived.



Footnotes and Resources

1- If you are unfamiliar with the concepts of markets, supply, and demand, I recommend this video by crash course as a decent introduction.

They also mention market failures in the last part of the video. Market failures are not an economic law like supply and demand, but rather an opinion about whether the result of the free market is the most desirable result. Obviously, different people desire different things, making the concept of market failures a highly subjective matter. This puts market failures into a different category from supply and demand (which are just descriptions about how reality works), and I find it unfortunate that they included it in the video. However, I don't know of a better resource to direct you to if you are unfamiliar with supply and demand.

To get another perspective on a kidney market (mentioned in the crash course video), and markets in general, see this video hosted by economist Brian Caplan. The accompanying playlist is also enlightening.

For more about economics (it's important guys) I recommend Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Available online here.

Additionally, a huge library of amazing econ literature compiled by Tom Woods can be found here.

2- This is obviously a Hobbit reference, as the vast wealth of Erebor (also known as the Lonely Mountain) was legendary.

3- Potato substitutes exist! One such substitute is radishes. Apparently.

4- This video and this other video by Reason go into more detail as to the specifics of the rise of Uber. It is a pretty intriguing story.

5- There has been much written about the subject of historical monopolies. The historical examples of monopoly actually follow the trend of either supreme customer service, or supreme state backing.

Links!
    The Misplaced Fear of “Monopoly” - Article by Tom Woods. This article is focused on refuting "Predatory Pricing", and does contain some mention of historical "monopolies"
    Big Business, Monopoly, and Predatory Pricing - Speech Excerpt by Tom Woods which is entertaining and touches on the historical "Robber Barons".
    The Robber Barons and Monopoly - Podcast by Tom Woods. This podcast goes through in great detail many of the "Robber Barons" stories. As well as many stories about State backed monopolies and subsidized industries.
    Fear of Monopoly - Article by Edmond S. Bradley. This article makes a very similar case to the one that I have made, but couched in some "too hard to enter" industries: Automobiles, Airplanes, and Electric Power.

Minimum Wage Destroys Jobs

A three point argument:

1- There exists jobs that are worth less than minimum wage to perform. 2- There exists employers that will not pay employees more than the job is worth to perform it. 3- Some jobs from 1 that would exist because of the employers from 2 do not currently exist because of minimum wage laws.

Short and sweet.

On Discrimination

In this post I am going to give my thoughts about discrimination. Let us define the term discrimination. This definition is from google, and seems pretty well consistent with the definition that I've come to know.

1. Discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit.

Ok. Using this definition, I can show that everybody discriminates all the time.

Concerning "based on the group, class, or category ...": let's list some groups, classes, or categories by which people might be classified. The ones that are usually discussed include these: race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or religion. However, people can also be classified in the following ways: my friends, my family, me, people inside of my house, people with brown hair, people whose names start with 'h', people whose names I chose from out of a hat... etc. You probably get my point by now, which is that there are an indefinite number of ways to classify people.

If that isn't bad enough, "individual merit" is equally non-helpful. When discussing merit, we have to keep in mind the following 2 facts. Firstly, merit is highly subjective. What's important to you about a person may not be important to me. For example, I work in the software industry, and to some, having a college degree in computer science is very important for a developer. However, in my view, the degree is far far less important than having a passion for software. A self taught programmer is (in my opinion) better than a degree'd one. Other people think differently than me on this. Is one of these ways of thinking "correct" and the other "wrong"? Depends on your opinion.

Secondly, the merits required to perform any given job vary wildly depending on the job to perform. For example, the merits of a construction worker might include being strong enough carry heavy loads around the construction site, or being fit enough to work long hard hours (ableism!). The merits of a friend might include getting along with you, or having known you for a long time (it's all about who you know!). The merits of a model might include being the correct sex (sexism!), being good looking, or being the correct weight (lookism!).

So, since any arbitrary group of people can be defined by anybody, and the merits of a job are very changeable both by the job being performed as well as by the person who's measuring them, this essentially means that the only solid thing we have to measure discrimination by is our own personal preference.

Everyone Discriminates by Some Measurement

One could say that a merit to take in to account when deciding who to hang out with would be "how much fun will you have?" or perhaps "how long have you known this person?" or maybe "how well do you get along?" "how many interests do you have in common?". By any (all in fact) of these measures, I should hang out with my friends every time, and never hang out with my children. Yet, I choose to hang out with my children many times anyway. Does this mean that I'm discriminating against my friends? Using the definition above and the merits listed, YES.

My point is, we all discriminate, all the time. If you think you're not discriminating, I just have to define a group of people and a set of merits and WHAM! Discrimination!

There is no "objective and correct" definition of merit that will account for every situation or even any situation. We each have our preferences about what merits are important, and thereby we discriminate incorrectly by the measure some other person's preferences.

Discrimination in Business

I have two points to make here. The first is to reiterate that the merits required for any given job are highly subjective. Take, for example, the job of Rock Star. There is (and can be) no objective measure of the merits of a rock star that make him successful. We might be able to measure the pure, technical singing ability, or the pure, technical guitar skill. But most of what makes the Rock Star successful is the subjective tastes of the audience. A rock star's salary is essentially set by the number of people that buy the music.

Another example is this: many companies advertise to potential employees that they have a great work environment. Having had a fair number of jobs myself, I can say that great work environments are mostly caused by having co-workers that you get along with and that are fun to be around. I don't think that many people would list "the boss / employees get along with him" or "the boss / employees think he is fun" as merits for any given job. Yet when looking for a job, if one gets multiple job offers, the deciding factor may be whether you like the people you'll be working with/for. So hiring somebody slightly less qualified on paper because you think they'll fit in better is not actually unreasonable. Additionally, since "fitting in" is entirely based on the existing employee's preferences and since preferences vary wildly from one person to the next, this means that this particular reasonable merit is completely subjective and will vary from workplace to workplace.

The second point is that in accepted norms, the employees and customers are always allowed to discriminate, whereas the employer / business is not. For instance, if you are racist and don't want to work with a black guy, then you don't have to. You can go in for the job interview, notice the black guy, and then turn down the job. Nobody will ask twice; people are allowed to turn down jobs. However, if you are racist and don't want to work work with a black guy and you own your own business, you're SOL if a black guy interviews.

The customer/business relationship is no less one-sided. If you are racist and don't want to buy something from a black guy, then you don't have to. You can walk in to the store, see the black guy, and then walk right back out. However, if you are just as racist but now you own the store, if a black guy walks in, you are forced to sell to him.

Doesn't this seem unfair? In each case the guy was just as racist, the only difference is whether he owned his own business or not. Are we really okay with discriminating in this way against people who own businesses? Remember, if nobody owned a business, then nobody would have a job.

Conclusion

We all discriminate and we all approve of the ways that we individually discriminate (e.g. you don't disapprove of your own discrimination). Therefore, we should not make laws against discrimination. Other people might find your discriminatory behavior in whatever situation unsatisfactory. Some people might even be offended by the ways that you discriminate! Should those people be able to come with the police and force you to pay them for discriminating in what they view as the wrong way? Additionally, will outlawing certain kinds of discrimination change the opinion of the discriminators?

Justice should not be discriminatory based on anything but deeds, but laws and the people who enforce them are. That's one of the reasons why there should be as few laws as possible.

I put it forth that rather than outlawing the kind of discrimination that you don't like, you should feel free to discriminate against the discriminators. If discrimination is as life destroying a force as is supposed and if most people discriminate like you do, the discriminators will soon have to change their ways. And all this without the need for any action on the part of police or politicians!

Having an orderly society: If not the state, then who?

Obviously, people (in general) want a peaceful and happy place to live. They want order. One of the oft-cited reasons that we must have a state is to provide order.

In this post, I will argue that order can be achieved without a coercive gun-bearing state.

1- Order is preferable to Chaos
I think that orderliness is all about planning for the future, it is about predictability. For example, a list of things in alphabetical order makes it so that you can predict where any given item that you're looking for will be found. This makes finding said item much easier.

In an orderly society, the events of tomorrow (or 5, 10, 20 years from now etc) can be reasonably predicted. An orderly society is a predictable society. If you are unsure about what things are going to be like tomorrow, it makes it very hard to decide what to do today in order to influence your tomorrow for the better. I think that the average person is quite interested in creating a better tomorrow for themselves, and having an orderly society makes this possible in ways that just can't be achieved otherwise.

I want to make the world a better place for me, my family, and all humans, and having order basically makes this possible. So, if you are like me and want to make tomorrow better, then order is preferable to chaos.

2- Violence Begets Chaos
Violence inevitably leads to chaos. Imagine a society where violence is commonplace. In this society people kill each other for fun, take each other's stuff, and have no regard for friendship or humanity. One day a person may be your "friend", and the next he is trying to kill you for sport.

In this society nothing productive can happen. If I were to, say, plant a field of wheat, then there is no guarantee that months later when it's harvest time that the crops will still be there, or that I'll still have the tools in my possession to harvest them, or even that I will still be alive. Any investment that doesn't yield immediate gains is folly, because there are no guarantees as to what you'll be able to do (or even if you'll be alive) tomorrow.

Now, imagine a society where there is just 1 person who is violent. In this society, most people can plan for their futures, because most people will never meet that guy. However, anybody that does meet that guy could suddenly have all their plans demolished.

Everything that violence touches becomes less orderly, because violence by it's very nature is unpredictable.

3- Law and Order
Since law is simply peaceful (rather than violent) resolution of disputes between parties, it by it's very definition reduces violence in a society and therefore reduces chaos. Additionally, having a framework (laws) that define how disputes will most likely be resolved provides even more predictability, since one can count on the law to be "on their side" as it were, if a dispute were to arise.

Note, however, that not all things called laws provide this predictability. Law is supposed to function as a guideline for how disputes are to be resolved. If there is no dispute, then there is no need for law. So, any law that defines behavior where there is no dispute (for example, requiring hair-dressers to get licensed before cutting hair) does not contribute to improving the predictability of a society.

4- The State and Order
The state is the traditional enforcer of law. The courts are made to be a place where law gets upheld, and the police are charged with responding to complaints (disputes) and preventing violence by encouraging the parties of a dispute to go to the courts to gain resolution. If a person has a dispute with you and is threatening to use violence to get his way, you can call on the police to prevent that from happening.

This sounds fine, and works OK for civil disputes. The problem arises when it is the state itself that is party to the dispute. If the state and I have a dispute, there is no way to resolve the dispute peacefully. Most likely the state will just decide that it is in the right, and forcibly enact it's decision.

Take, for example, eminent domain. If a private party tried to enact eminent domain, "Here's 2x your home's value in cash and now you have to leave" while holding a gun pointed toward you, that would be theft. If you called the police in this circumstance, they would take your side.

However, if the city decides that it needs to seize your home for a project, it can do so without your consent. E.g. when it's the one saying, "Here's 2x your home's value in cash now you have to leave" and holding a gun pointed at you, then there is nothing you can do. The police won't help you because they are the ones holding the gun. The state enforces it's policies through violence. Violence begets chaos.

Consider the USA. At any moment, congress or any one of the many, many regulatory agencies can create new rules that you have to live by. How can you predict what your life will be like in 20 years when the rules can change radically and without warning? One day you can freely cut anyone's hair who agrees to let you do it, the next, you must be licensed to do this. One day you are free to drink alcohol, the next you cannot, and the next you can again, but only if you're 21. One day you are free to assess your own risk of getting sick and purchase health insurance, the next you must purchase it whether you like it or not. One day you pay 20% of your income in taxes, the next 35%. One day you're going to college, the next you find yourself in an infantry training camp, soon to be shipped across the world to kill or be killed.

In the interest of order, there needs to be an agency to enforce law. However, this agency cannot be exempted from the law that it enforces. The state will always be able to be exempt from the law it enforces, because it is necessarily powerful enough that it's citizens cannot challenge it. Since it can do this, eventually, it will.

5- Anarchy and Order
There needs to be law to foster order. So, how can law be enforced without a state?

My response is fairly simple to explain, though the ultimate solution will likely be complex. There will be private, for-profit, competing companies that will do it.

But what would stop these companies from fighting against each other? What would stop one of them from taking over and becoming a new state?

My response to the first question has two parts. The first part is "mutual benefit" and "profits". War is expensive. How many people would sign up to be a security guard for your company if they might have to DIE? How much would you have to pay them to take that risk? How much does it cost to buy, say, a tank, just so that it can get destroyed while destroying an opposing tank? Since each of the companies would be for profit, none of them wants to go to war. It is much cheaper (and therefore more profitable) for them to work out their differences without violence.

The second part of the answer is competition. Since membership in the company is not mandatory, if you thought a certain law enforcement company was too violent or too power hungry, you could simply subscribe to one of their less violent competitors, thus taking the funding for the violent power-hungry company away. If most people in society didn't want power-hungry, violent companies running around, then competitive forces (as well as the fact that war is expensive) would tend to make non-violent companies succeed and violent ones fail. Additionally, who would sign up to die for a for-profit company's war?

To get a picture in mind about how this competitive force would operate, imagine that a law-enforcement agency salesman comes to your home to get you to subscribe to the agency that he represents. What safeguards would you shop for? Remember, that if you are not satisfied by whatever safeguards that the company has, you can subscribe to a different company that fulfills this desire of yours more accurately. As long as the majority of people don't want any one law enforcement agency to become a monopoly of force in an area, competitive forces will serve to prevent it from happening.

Additionally, having to worry whether one agency will grow too powerful and start oppressing people is a much better situation than what exists under a state, where there is already an agency that has claimed such power.

Order can be achieved in a stateless society as long as the majority of people want order and are willing to pay for it. Order can never be maintained with a state in control, because eventually a minority of people will always claim the power to, on a whim, enact and enforce arbitrary rules.

Why I am an Anarchist

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I am an Anarchist.

Yeah, that's right. A straight up Anarchist. As in, anarchy, bombs, chaos, burning buildings, looting, riots, destroyed farms! The works. The state (i.e. the authoritarian organization that claims by fiat to own all land and people within a certain geographical region) is evil. It is lawless and immoral.

1- Anarchy
I shall begin by addressing the concept of anarchy itself. Anarchy has many terrible connotations associated with it, a few of which I stated above. Obviously, I am convinced that anarchy is not synonymous with chaos, burning buildings etc. On the contrary, I believe that striving for anarchy is the pathway to a better future.

So, what is anarchy if not burning and looting? It is simply the absence of a state that can impose its will on its citizens. To paraphrase Stephan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio, "Most people think that anarchy means to be without rules, but that is not the case. They are missing one letter. Anarchy means to be without rulers." Anarchism is to believe that individuals are best equipped to know what is best for themselves, and that each should be able to make decisions on his own behalf. It is to believe that everyday people can get along with each other without having to resort to violence.

Authoritarianism, which is the polar opposite, is the belief that some people should be able to make decisions behalf of others. It is the belief that a minority of the people know what is best for everybody, and should be able force everyone to follow their chosen path.

Anarchy is not chaos. Rather it is simply the lack of overseeing, force using, blanket decision making rulers (e.g. The State). It is to empower individuals to do what they judge to be best, rather than to rely on the rulers to be benevolent. Not sounding too bad now is it? I will likely go into further detail on this subject in the future.

2- The State
The state in any particular region is an organization of people who claim the right to order everybody within that region around, and enforce these orders using a pile of guns, soldiers, and police that they employ. The US Government is an example of a state. The people who run the state claim the right to use force (i.e. violence) to get their way (i.e. enforce laws that they pass). Some examples:

The state can force you to risk your life in a war that you didn't want and that you don't agree with.

The state can steal from you in order to pay for things that you think are morally wrong.

The state can lock you away for 20 years for being addicted to the wrong kind of smoke.

The state can force you to ransom your future for cutting somebody's hair without the state's permission.

The state can deny you access to a life saving drug because they haven't approved it.

The state can force you to buy in to a retirement plan that has no hope of ever paying back out.

The state ... Shall I go on?

These laws are enforced using violence! You may say that you've never looked down the gun of a police officer, but that doesn't make the violence any less real. For example, say, you wanted to pay less taxes one year. Maybe you had an expensive medical emergency that year, maybe you don't agree with a war that is currently being waged, maybe it's something else. Regardless of the reason, you would almost certainly pay the full tax anyway. Why? Because if you didn't, you would owe even more. If you didn't pay the extra, you would be summoned to court. If you didn't show up to court, you would be confronted by a police officer. If you didn't go with him peacefully, you would be staring down the barrel of his gun. Eventually, it all comes down to the gun in that police officer's hand.

Saying that fines or taxes are not violent is like saying that paying "protection money" to the mafia is not violent. If you pay the protection money, you will never look down the barrel of the mobster's tommy gun, but that doesn't make the fact that he has a tommy gun irrelevant. That doesn't make the threat of violence any less real.

3- The Lawfulness of the State
Lawfulness is all about dispute resolution. If two people interact, say by striking up a business deal, and both people fulfill their end of the deal to the satisfaction of the other person, then there is no need for law. Law only matters if one or both of the people feels as though the other has not held up their end of the bargain, and, after discussing with each other the problem, they cannot come to agreement as to whether the bargain was upheld or not. In other words law only matters if there is a dispute.

Disputes can come in many forms. Such is above: a broken business agreement. Other disputes might include one person damaging another person's property, or polluting his air, or stealing from him, or beating him up, or harassing him, etc.

Being lawful is all about dispute resolution. In order to lawfully resolve disputes, both disputing parties must submit themselves to a non-biased third party arbitrator to resolve the dispute for them. They must also agree to be bound by the judgement of this third party. For example, if Bill and Jack could not agree as to where to draw a property line, they would submit their arguments as to where the line should be drawn to a third party arbitrator, and then both abide by wherever that arbitrator decided to draw the line. It would not be lawful if the arbitrator was Jack's brother, wife, or even Jack himself, as then the arbitrator is unlikely to be able to make an unbiased, fair judgement.

This is what it means to be lawful. It means to resolve disputes peacefully with the help of a non-biased third party, rather than to get resolution through violence. In the example above, it would not have been lawful for Jack to beat Bill up and then draw the line where he thought it should go.

The most well known form of dispute resolution is the state run court system. In civil disputes, such as a lawsuit, the two parties submit the dispute to the court to render judgement, and both abide by it. This is a lawful transaction between them.

However, when the state and a person get into a dispute, such as about whether a law should exist at all, these cases are NOT submitted to an unbiased third party. Rather, they are submitted to the state-run courts. This is not lawful, as it is analogous to Jack submitting his property dispute with Bob to his brother, or to his wife. Since the courts are part of the state, they are not unbiased.

You may say that the courts are a different branch of the state from the lawmakers, and this makes them unbiased. However, this would be like saying that the HR department of a company is a different branch from the sales department, and therefore would be unbiased when judging actions that the sales department has taken. While it is true that they are different branches with different responsibilities, they are all part of the same organization, and in most cases will do what is best for the organization rather than what is fair or lawful.

Because the state resolves disputes involving itself, it is not lawful.

4- The Morality of the State
The State uses a collection of guns, soldiers, and police to force its citizens to do things that the citizens don't want to do. If I point a gun at somebody and force him to do something he does not want to do, then I would be immoral. Why should it be moral for a government to do this?

You may say, "but I can vote!"

The fact that you can vote does not make pointing a gun at somebody moral! If there were 3 people in a room, would it be moral for two of them to vote to take the third person's wallet and then enforce the vote using a gun? Maybe if they voted to take and split just 20% of the money out of the his wallet? What if they just took $6 from his wallet, used it to buy 6 candy bars, and then gave 2 candy bars back to each person? Would that be moral?

No. Any amount of stealing is immoral. Even if it has the approval of the majority.

What if it wasn't about money, but about labor? Would it be moral for 2 of the 3 to vote for the third to be their slave? Maybe if he just had to work for them for 8 hours a day? Maybe just 1 hour? What if the one voted to be a slave for 1 hour didn't follow their orders during the allotted time? Would it be moral for them to shoot him or beat him or lock him away to enforce the vote?

No. Any amount of slavery is immoral. Even if it has the approval of the majority.

Would such a voting system be moral if there were 5 people in the room? 50? How about 150,000? No. Having the approval of more people does not make slavery or stealing or violence moral.

You may say, "but I would conform voluntarily to everything the state forces upon me, even if it wasn't enforced using violence!"

That is fine. I give you permission to do that. I just ask that you give the rest of us permission to not do that. It is not moral for you to force me to do something, even if you would voluntarily do that same thing.

Using a gun to force another peaceful person to do something they don't want to do is NEVER moral. It doesn't matter if 51/100 people voted for you to do it. It doesn't matter if 300 million people told you to do it. It doesn't matter if you think it is the best thing for that person to do. It is not moral. Yet, this is how the state operates. It points guns at peaceful people and forces them to do things. The state is not moral.

Conclusion
I cannot, in good conscience, support an unlawful and immoral organization, and therefore I cannot support the state. I have no choice but to be an anarchist.

BEHOLD: A FIRST POST!

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