Life as a Service

http://jacquesmattheij.com/life-as-a-service

by emwa • 14 years ago

167 161 14 years ago

tzaman• 14 years ago

Great analogy, it seems like you live right next door :)

davidkatz• 14 years ago

There's a serious discussion here which seems ignored. It is: "what are the pros and cons of government forced 'terms of life'". Without that discussion, it seems to me that most of the complaints in the article remain a curiosity.

zerostar07• 14 years ago

The underlying idea is that you have silently agreed to a social contract by participating in the society. Of course, children are not likely to understand the reasons why this is a good idea for most people. One can freely choose to live like an outlaw or outside of society, with all the pros and cons that come with it.

This kind of nostalgia is similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz

peteretep3• 14 years ago

Can't you simply renounce your citizenship at 18?

vasco• 14 years ago

One would think that if one was to renounce its citizenship, waiting for a predefined age set by whom you will be renouncing would be rather odd.

peteretep3• 14 years ago

Defacto your legal guardians have signed you up to this until the age of majority. That seems pretty reasonable, under any jurisdiction.

nagnatron2• 14 years ago

This hits very close and I guess you only realize it if at some point of your life you live where you'd rather not but have no way to get out.

    I need permission from my government if I want to leave
    the country. Being given a passport is apparently not a
    right. Oh and they cost quite a bit of money and are 
    valid only 5 years. That works out to a certain amount of 
    money per day just to be able to exist outside the
    borders of the country I was born in. Good thing it
    doubles as an ID card, I can save a bit there. Now I’ve
    never done anything from the list of offenses that would
    stop me from receiving a passport but I really wonder who 
    gave who the right to stop anybody from going where they
    wanted to go. It makes very little sense to me, all these 
    countries each with their own set of laws, borders,
    border guards to keep people out of one place, border
    guards to keep people in another place and so on. It
    feels as though they’re all prisons, just large enough
    that you can’t see the fences on the edge. But the fences
    are definitely there. And you can only buy your way out.
    Never mind that to go somewhere else you are also going
    to have to buy your way in.

jschuur2• 14 years ago

I challenge the 'quite a bit of money' part. Fees for a Dutch passport amount to about US $100 at the UK embassy e.g. (I'm Dutch, but live in the UK):

http://www.dutchembassyuk.org/page/index.php?i=158

Sure, $100 sounds low for many people, even though it's a fortune for some. However, spread across a 5 year period, it's a little more than 5 cents a day.

rheide• 14 years ago

It's tax for living. It's bad.

bigiain• 14 years ago

Which, if it were the only complaint, could easily be dismissed. But there's more to government bureaucracy than just the passport department. How many other government departments are there who are saying "but it's barely 5 cents a day!"? Hundreds? Thousands? At what stage do we say "Hang on, that's _too_ much"? $5/day? $50/day? $500/day?

nagnatron2• 14 years ago

The passport fee is not the problem. Until relatively recently I've had to(and still do for some countries) also provide a lot of paperwork and pay a visa fee to go to a neighboring country.

And I know 100$ sounds like not much but consider that my parents were not of means in a country of a rather low standard of living.

This may not be what the author meant with this paragraph but it's what resonated with me.

Anderkent• 14 years ago

While some of the complaints are fair, the conclusion is absurd. The rights already clearly outweigh the obligations, which the author confirms himself by stating that "given the option I probably would/should have signed it [the contract".

It seems to me the author takes many benefits of having the "Life as a Service" subscription for granted, and thus believes they are not part of the service - that they would persist even if there was no overseeing organization. Just to provide an example, the right to own property is only enforced by the service - without it, you only have the 'right' to own whatever you can defend yourself (or convince someone to defend for you).

Thus in the 'LaaS' you have to pay taxes, or your property will be confiscated. Without 'LaaS' you have to be ready to fight for whatever you own, or your property will be confiscated. Seems like a win for me.

robryan• 14 years ago

Yeah, I think it is more about the lack of choice aspect than the result, depending on which country you find yourself in. Coming from a rich country at least you have enough mobility to eventually overcome immigration rules and move pretty much where you desire. Not true of poorer countries though, at least not for most people living in them.

flyinRyan5• 14 years ago

But keep in mind; he doesn't seem to be a fan of property rights anyway, so he probably isn't sympathetic to a position of "defending your land".

gws• 14 years ago

This article leaves me uneasy. We need to separate the process that societies use to determine laws and customs from the outcomes themselves. I'm also against many of the outcomes described in the article but the process used to get there in the countries where Jacques and I live in it's the best process we know of. OK, maybe the least worst is more appropriate but I can't really think anything else I would like to replace Democracy with.

h2s• 14 years ago

The unordered list is an overused and inadequate replacement for properly structured prose.

mhd• 14 years ago

My gist of that: society and economy are weird. (Although a few points are, well, a bit silly)

Welcome to the human condition, geworfenheit etc.

lifeisstillgood• 14 years ago

The essence of the (flawed) argument Jacques is making is in his passport section

  I need permission from my government if I want to leave
  the country.

Oddly, that's not true. A passport is necessary to get into a country, not leave one. The distinction is subtle but important. You can if you wish as an adult, leave the country you are in, and if they will let you in, enter another with a different set of obligations. At worst you can just bob around the Atlantic in a bath tub for a bit.

The whole set of complaints boil down to, are there other countries which have a better setup than the country I am in? Can I go now?

The answer for anyone in the West is of course, not such that you would notice. And yes, no-one is stopping you. (But I would not recommend the bathtub option)

Edit: I just realised that it could read as "well if you dont like it F off." It honestly was not meant like that - but its hard to reword the whole comment now.

fingerprinter• 14 years ago

You need a passport to leave Australia. Australia has immigration on exit. Though, that is the only place I've seen this.

wattson12• 14 years ago

Ive been through quite a few customs on leaving a country, typically when there is a fixed time limit you are allowed to stay on certain visas

mynegation• 14 years ago

For me, it is the other way around: US and Canada don't check your passport at exit and when that happened to me for the first time I had to ask airport employee just to make sure I did not take a wrong turn or something. All of EU, All Latin America countries I've been to, Russia and Ukraine check passports and there were and still are countries that you cannot leave without explicit permission from governement (eg North Kirea and Kuba).

ra• 14 years ago

Most countries that require a passport for entry also require one for exit. Otherwise there would be no control to stop people from fleeing the law.

mootothemax• 14 years ago

Oddly, that's not true. A passport is necessary to get into a country, not leave one.

Not true for me, at least. I live in Poland, which means I get passport-free travel (and ID-card free, for that matter) within the EU Schengen Area, but not when visiting my home country, the UK, since it's outside the Schengen area.

To visit the UK, I have to go via the scary ladies and gentlemen in glass booths with big guns strapped to their sides and show my passport (or ID card if I had one). I've travelled a few times to other countries outside the Schengen area, and each time the only way to get to the gate is via these booths. I'm pretty certain that there's no opt-out.

Poland's not alone in this; plenty of countries check your passport on departure. Last one I remember is Turkey, pretty sure when I was in India and Tunisia similar happened.

atirip• 14 years ago

That's because governments are widely agreed that the "sender" country is responsible if passenger has no right to enter "receiver" country. So to avoid the hassle, it's mandatory to check your passport when you leave Poland, but not whether you have right to leave Poland...

smoyer• 14 years ago

I was working in Brazil on a fixed-term visa and presenting my passport upon entry and exit was my proof that I hadn't spent more than 90 days in the country.

Curiously, the government contract I was helping with ended when the project's assets were seized as part of an investigation into government corruption. Millions of Real worth of equipment is sitting locked in an evidence locker instead of benefiting society.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure all governments are flawed to one degree or another.

_pferreir_3• 14 years ago

I think "Life as a Slave" would have been more suitable.

phn2• 14 years ago

Have you read anything at all about slavery? Compared to that, being a citizen with rights as well as obligations is a huge blessing.

flyinRyan5• 14 years ago

Well, it depends on which slaves you're talking about. Not being a slave is always better than being one, but sometimes "slave" basically meant being in a lot of debt...

_pferreir_3• 14 years ago

I have read about slavery of course, and I'm aware of what the word means. I obviously didn't meant "slave" in the traditional, historical sense.

Actually, the OED defines "slave" as "One who is the property of, and entirely subject to, another person, whether by capture, purchase, or birth". That's quite a broad definition, isn't it?

Yes, I know I am really fortunate by comparison with most of the world's population, but that's not enough for me, I am sorry. I tend not to look to whatever I have as "blessings", I guess I'm one of the "half-empty" guys.

fierarul• 14 years ago

This is a rather poor attempt at philosophy that basically rides on yesterday's blog (the pendulum one) remark about Life-as-a-Service.

If anything it should teach people about how to keep the blog audience interested.

I was pretty sure I could down-vote by now but apparently I can't downvote articles. I guess I should just upvote everything else on the page...

icebraining• 14 years ago

It's not possibly to downvote articles, only upvote or flag.

digitalWestie3• 14 years ago

Agreed about riding on the back of other articles.

Care to explain further? Why is it a poor attempt at philosophy?

marklindhout2• 14 years ago

Riding? Yes.

Poor attempt at philosophy? No. This merely describes the daily situation here, and I find myself agreeing with most all of what he says. He is very well-spoken, and I believe it resonates with many people from the Netherlands.

mbrock• 14 years ago

Furthermore, why must I live inside this sack of greasy skin, with all these disgusting organs?

praptak3• 14 years ago

The author has not really gone beyond stating that we are subject to the social contract (no shit sherlock) and that we should try harder to make this contract much better (ditto.) Go read the Wikipedia article on social contract, it has a much better value per seconds of your attention.

eli_gottlieb6• 14 years ago

Yeah, well, this is what you get when you cut out all the political philosophy and liberal arts from the education system: a bunch of libertarian programmers who think they've discovered something really new.

msluyter• 14 years ago

"Even so, I’d be a lot happier paying taxes if there had been a moment where I was given the choice: pay taxes and have these benefits or be left to your own devices."

Except that there's no (current, easy) way of excluding you from various public goods that are paid by taxes. Examples include national defense, public spaces like parks, public highways, fire protection (if you live in shared housing or simply close enough to others such that we can't take the risk of letting your house burn down), etc...

That's why these goods are called "non-excludable." See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludability

praptak3• 14 years ago

Don't forget the money service - managing supply and providing guarantees for its value. Actually if you manage to exclude yourself from using this particular service you won't have to pay any taxes.

Zak5• 14 years ago

That's not entirely true. I'll confine my response to how things work in the US since that's where I live and it's what I know the most about.

Attempting to use an alternate medium of exchange may result in legal problems. In particular, Federal law says:

Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

That doesn't seem to exclude exchanging goods or services for precious metals or other commodities so long as they're not cast in to something resembling money. It would be difficult to make small day-to-day purchases that way.

The other problem is that income tax law in the US applies to non-monetary compensation. If I pay you 2kg of gold to work for me for a year on a software project and the IRS finds out about it, they will demand that you pay taxes on its dollar value.

Zak5• 14 years ago

In principle, I agree with you, but most of the things you list are relatively cheap.

In the United States (I know Jacques isn't American), the majority of the Federal budget is devoted to the military, interest on the national debt, various forms of free/subsidized insurance for the old and poor, and various forms of income support for the poor. The public goods other than national defense you list are very cheap in comparison to these things. Federal fuel taxes exceeded Federal highway spending in 2010 according to http://usgovernmentspending.com.

The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay. Most of the rest of the spending falls in to the category of supporting people who for whatever reason have difficulty supporting themselves.

There's a reasonable debate to be had about how and how much we want to provide support to some people by taxing others, but let's not pretend it's primarily about things like roads and fire departments.

Jare• 14 years ago

> The US spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined, so there's a good chance it's possible to have effective national defense for an order of magnitude less than we currently pay

But national defense (or really, defense of any kind) is about more than just the ability to successfully repeal an attack; at certain scale, it's about ensuring that nobody even tries to lift a finger against you. And then there's the 'implied offensive' angle where others fear what you might do.

The security and strength provided by that military is a significant factor in the ability of the USA to create and retain its wealth. Limiting the size of military to purely defensive levels would also limit that ability, so in many ways it's as much an investment as roads and fire departments. It's hard to measure the ROI but the stakes are clearly very high.

Hope this doesn't feel cynical.

winter_blue• 14 years ago

> Federal fuel taxes exceeded Federal highway spending in 2010 according to http://usgovernmentspending.com.

Wow, looking at that chart, the greatest spending is on Healthcare! ($1.1 trillion!!!) Shouldn't $1.1 trillion be able to provide world-class universal healthcare (to everyone) ?

mibbitier3• 14 years ago

One thing I've never understood, is why a seemingly large number of Americans don't seem to see the similarity between public fire protection, and a public health service.

Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

wwwtyro• 14 years ago

> Aren't these two things pretty essential for civilisation?

Isn't that also true of food?

po2• 14 years ago

In some places, fire protection is apparently up for debate. This family had their house burn down because they failed to pay the $75 tax. It's only fair after all:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/tennessee-family-home-b...

I think it's even been given the unfortunate name 'pay to spray'. Fire prevention is just as much up for debate amongst people of a certain ideological bent as healthcare. It's the next logical step. Of course, most people don't want to live in that world which is why we have compulsory payments. Those who see them as a positive thing will probably always have to tolerate those who complain about how unfair they are.

scottlilly• 14 years ago

They don't see the similarity because they are, in fact, different.

If my house catches on fire, and someone doesn't put it out, there is a reasonable chance it will spread to other houses. So it's a societal issue - at least at the local scale. As a societal issue, it makes sense for each member to be forced to pay for it.

If I break my leg, there is no increased chance that my neighbor will break his leg. So it's a personal issue. My neighbor receives no benefit from my leg being repaired, and is not harmed if isn't repaired. So why should he be forced to pay for it?

If you want to say that public health care should exist to provide vaccinations, in order to prevent the spread of disease to others in society, that would be a reasonable argument.

yummyfajitas3• 14 years ago

Epidemic prevention certainly is, in the same way fire protection is - both a fire and an epidemic can rage out of control and kill lots of people. They are public goods because they have large positive externalities.

Both are also dirt cheap (i.e., single-digit percentages of government spending) and very few people oppose their public provision. So why bring them up?

arethuza3• 14 years ago

"left to your own devices"

That reminds me of the old status of being an outlaw - which really meant that you were outside of the protection of the law and anyone could do whatever they wanted to you. It was regarded as rather a harsh punishment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw

olalonde2• 14 years ago

The modern version would probably be "freemen on the land": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land

"Freemen on the land" are people who believe that all statute law is contractual, and that such law is applicable only if an individual consents to be governed by it. They believe that they can therefore declare themselves independent of government jurisdiction, holding that the only "true" law is common law, as they define it.

adaml_6232• 14 years ago

I think the OP's point that we are surrounded by established monopolies is very noticeable nowadays. Copyright agency, Lawyers, Medical practitioners, etc.

a-priori• 14 years ago

s/monopolies/professionals/

You picked a strange list of examples. None of them are monopolies, they're usually individual professionals or small practices.

anonymoushn2• 14 years ago

People are artificially prevented from entering these professions in the United States. A person who spends several years in a library learning about the interpretation and application of the law, and who would be capable of passing a bar exam, is not allowed to take the exam. In all but 2 states, to gain the privilege of taking the exam, he or she must first pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a law school. In the remaining 2 states, if he or she is old enough (23 or 25, if I recall correctly), it would suffice to instead work for a judge for a couple years.

This keeps the supply of professionals low and allows the organizations that sell proffesion-practicing certifications to collect a rent. It's a good scam, and I would prefer to be on the other side of it. As I probably won't be able to achieve this, my close second preference would be for the scam to not exist.

Grunnt• 14 years ago

Life is not a service. You did not sign a contract. Not everything is a business agreement. Individualism is not the ultimate value.

I guess that is what bugs me the most about this article: the idea that seems to underlie it that humans are all rational beings that are somehow unconnected to society. Or at least the idea that it is morally desirable for this to be the case.

I do not agree with this. It is individualism taken too far, beyond where the idea of individualism is meaningful. Human beings need social conditioning as much as they need food and drink to survive. Anarchism is a nice theory (much like pure communism or capitalism) but it disregards the nature of human beings, who need to be embedded in society with all its rules, norms and conditioning mechanisms to function.

If you want a different society, go into politics, change things for the better. Don't sit on the couch complaining that the "service" is not as good as you like.

p.s. Life is life (nanananana)

elemenohpee• 14 years ago

s/anarchism/libertarianism/

While there are certainly strains of individualist anarchism, the dominant tradition has been that of socialism, which stresses the importance of community and social relations. You seem to be confusing the maxim of "no rulers" with "no rules".

eckyptang6• 14 years ago

Some thoughts on this:

You have no obligation to conform to these laws at all. You are not born into a contract. A contract is a piece of paper which you can use to wipe your bum with if you wish.

You can in theory do what the hell you like. People regularly do. You can kill people, not pay tax, walk over the border of any country and urinate anywhere you like.

The only downside is that someone who does subscribe to the rules will probably throw you in jail or kill you without respecting your choice.

Fear of the above is the only reason that the law works at all.

When the law becomes bad for the population, which it really is under many common ethical principles these days and it is getting worse, we need to have a revolution to reset the badness.

There is no happy solution to adding legislation other than resetting it completely occasionally.

Dying and emigrating just bring their own legal problems.

digitalWestie3• 14 years ago

Absolutely right - there is no formal contract.

What is being reflected on here is really a 'social contract' - see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

eckyptang6• 14 years ago

There is no social contract either. It evaporates in a moment's notice when you break the speed limit or download an mp3.

flyinRyan5• 14 years ago

But if you think about it, doesn't this seem crazy? I mean, obviously I shouldn't kill people, but if I don't do the things the implicit contract expects me to, some crazy person will come up and put me in a cage.

For example, if I happen to grow a plant that will grow on its own without my help, and happen to store a lot of these plants for the winter, I could get locked up by someone for being a drug dealer.

eckyptang6• 14 years ago

It's all crazy. Absolutely batshit crazy. People hide behind it all the time and defend it as well.

In your example, it is why people buy the plants from someone else. It is purely risk mitigation. It allows them to break the implicit contract without risking severe punishment. The drug dealers are willing to take a larger risk as there is a high probability of financial gain or a higher risk of getting killed by their importer/pusher.

lmm2• 14 years ago

All crazy people think they're sane and everyone else are the crazy ones.

If you can convince other people that you don't deserve to be locked up for growing these plants, then you won't be. All this talk of "implicit contracts" doesn't change that, it only overcomplicates everything.

tallanvor• 14 years ago

The only thing keeping you from killing people is fear?

I think moral values (no matter where they are derived from) keep people from committing more crimes.

eckyptang6• 14 years ago

Considering morality is founded on a fear of someone doing to you what you did to them, then yes.

This is a fairly basic interpretation of the golden rule but it stands up to the majority of counterpoints.

olalonde2• 14 years ago

> But it could be so much better if we really tried.

For anyone interested in alternative ways to improve government, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_city

"A charter city is a city in which the governing system is defined by the city's own charter document rather than by state, provincial, regional or national laws."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading

"Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by the government of any standing nation."

Paul_S2• 14 years ago

Shop around for a country to live in. I wish countries were more accommodating about this.

In my dream world like minded people live in the same country. Just think of how great it would be if you didn't have to compromise because everyone in the country were on the same side of (for example) the liberal/conservative divide.

sdoering• 14 years ago

Interesting idea. But I believe, that countries as a whole a too big to be really manageable. I imagine a society living in smaller regions (but big enough for natural resources, et al.) and these regions are part of a bigger structure. Like cells in a body. OK, Germany or the US do have a similar way of organizing, but I would love for these "cells" to be more autonomous, so that like-minded people could "just" switch cells, so that ideologies or political principles would be voted for by feet.

Something along these lines. sitting @work, this rough sketch is everything I can offer. And I know, a lot of detail is missing.

Paul_S2• 14 years ago

I think a 2 million city would be big enough. We can call it an special economic area. I do believe this is already happening.

We all know that this is the inevitable cyberpunk future - just substitute governments with corporations.

innguest2• 14 years ago

I have come to the same conclusion. I don't understand why we keep voting with ballots and not feet.

Does anyone here remember those vertical cities (they were effectively cities) in SimCity 2000 (3000?)? I can't find a picture (EDIT: found it: http://imgur.com/MBAzs) but ever since I first played that game, that tiny pixelated picture has given me many ideas.

Think of a large building with everything you need inside - all big box stores, small businesses, and residences. But in order to live there you need to share a lot in common with the philosophy that building was made for. So there would be one for liberals who are for abortion and for legalizing pot and so on and so forth; there would also be a separate building for all of the tiny variations, and those buildings would literally undergo a kind of natural selection (people would choose where to live) and the least popular ones would keep fine tuning their philosophy to try and attract more people.

That way we would all live with like minded people, there would be a lot less of the problems there are in today's society (basically all the proselytizing and wanting others to do as you think is right for them).

I'll stop here because I'm saving this stuff for a book or a long article, but Jacques article and your comments here have just alerted me to the fact that there might be other people who think the same as I do. To be frank, I'd much rather have a beer with you all than waste my time typing this crap. We could all do that if we lived in one of those vertical charter cities. :)

arethuza3• 14 years ago

I think plenty countries are very accomodating - at least if you have enough money.

pav3l• 14 years ago

Wouldn't that significantly increase "the variance" and segregation of different political ideologies across the world, thus promoting more international tension?

eloisant• 14 years ago

Well, it sounds like a really consumerist way to interpret things.

While it is true that some countries will not let you leave your country and will impose obligations even if you don't live in the country, in most western democracies (and in particular the author's country): * You can leave freely * As soon as you're not resident, you pretty much have no obligation toward your origin country - hell, you can even get a citizenship from a different country and be done with it.

I think among western democracies, only US imposes taxes on non-residents citizens.

Most of the complains are irrelevant - of course they are rules you have to follow, and you didn't decide at some point to "agree" with them. The rules are usually for the benefit of the group, i.e. not being able to use a land you buy for anything you want prevent you to build a chemistry factory in the middle of a residential area.

jonathanleane3• 14 years ago

I had the good fortune of being born Australian. Through sheer dumb luck I'm entitled to:

- Free healthcare - Free education - Free roads and parks - Free safety and security (i.e. a relatively well functioning police force that will protect me from violence)

These entitlements are far from perfect, and come with the caveat that if and when I start earning money, some of it will be taken from me (by threat of force, if necessary) to go into a communal fund to provide other Australians with these benefits.

That sucks a bit, but on the other hand I have a legal right to decide, along with other citizens, on the proportion of my income that is taken, as well as on the people in charge of managing these communal funds.

Perhaps more importantly, I get to live in a society where other people get these things too. I'm not saying this from a touchy-feely standpoint - there are huge benefits to the individual living in such a system.

Because virtually everyone in my country has food in their stomach, a roof over their head, and a shot at improving their situation through hard work, I rarely feel unsafe. From a purely selfish standpoint, I am extremely grateful that most of the people in my country feel they have more to gain by defending 'the system' than by attacking it.

As a business owner, I also have access to a large pool of highly educated people to work with and millions of (relatively) wealthy people to sell my products and services to.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I quite liked the article and often think about how silly and arbitrary things like nationalism and citizenship are.

And yet...

Sure it sucks that I never really had the opportunity to opt out of the system, but on the other hand - boy am I lucky that it was opt in by default.

marklindhout2• 14 years ago

If this guy isn't Dutch, I'm the pope.

These are quite literally exactly the reasons why I'm emigrating.

edanm2• 14 years ago

A few of these points are interesting, because things don't have to be that way (e.g. various government-granted monopolies).

But most of these points are uninteresting, in the sense that I cannot easily imagine alternatives. Public goods are a simple example - there's an economic reason it is not possible to let people opt-out of public goods: you can't not protect some people, so it is in their interest to opt-out and receive protection anyway. So everyone will opt-out.

I have a lot of respect for jacquesmattheij, and I love posts that make us reconsider basic assumptions of our society and decide whether they're good or not. Even as a philsophical exercise and without a practical angle, it's interesting. But most of the complaints here don't come with an alternative, so what are we supposed to do with them?

snitko3• 14 years ago

May I refer you to David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard for explanations of how public property would be so much better off as private property and how protection can be both private and optional? I mean you can disagree after reading it, but at least you wouldn't say there's no alternative.

edanm2• 14 years ago

Sure, and thanks. I'm not very well-read in economy but am working on it.

Do you have anything specific of theirs in mind?

flyinRyan5• 14 years ago

The worst part is: if you're a US citizen you're still "opted in" to paying taxes even after you don't live there and no longer use any of the services. In some cases, even if you've never lived there at all or even speak the language (hint: you can get american citizenship from being born on the soil or having a single biological parent who was).

infinite8s2• 14 years ago

There's an easy solution to that - renounce your citizenship. What's that? You want to keep your American citizenship? Then you must abide by the social contract underlying that grant of citizenship, which comes with certain benefits/obligations no matter where you are in the world.

flyinRyan5• 14 years ago

Nonsense. First of all, I am giving up my citizenship. But the US and North Korea are the only countries on this planet stupid enough to think people who don't live there anymore owe them money.

jofo25• 14 years ago

> And if a substantial number of them would opt-out that would be a much clearer sign than any elections ever could give that that society was on the wrong track.

I think this is a pretty interesting comment. It sparked the idea of a 'tax-free' zone in each country in my head. Like a area of each country with no government infrastructure or intervention. The proportion of population living in these zones would really give a good indicator of how the countries are treating it's citizens. People would be free to cross this fence whenever they wanted.

But in reality I don't think any country would want to give up land for such means.

gordonguthrie• 14 years ago

The US has run this experiment with the frontier. What happened? The communities beyond the frontier organised themselves and asked to be accepted as States of the Union.

You can freely move to Liberia now and do this. Buy magically nobody does.

adrianscott• 14 years ago

"I spent some time researching the emigration options. A lot of time actually. And I’ve found out that the place where I live is in spite of all of the above probably one of the best places on earth to be living at the moment. It’s shocking! Half the world or more of it would be more than happy just to trade with me, and they’d be absolutely right."

If you can earn a first-world nation without having to live there, something quite possible in tech, there are a number of countries where many folks can be quite happy and more free. And remember you don't have to just stay in one country, you can travel around a bit and sample countries also.

I made the move and it was the right decision to me, imho.

jonathanleane3• 14 years ago

Curious as to which countries you were considering, and which one you eventually decided on?

clneagu• 14 years ago

I'm not seeing anyone complain about the lack of competition for The State. If nothing else why would anyone defend the monopoly of the state? I don't see anyone defending any other monopoly.

Why should I be forced to move elsewhere for better service?

I understand that for now we don't have a better solution but stop defending the fucking monopoly.

lmm2• 14 years ago

I'll defend anything that I see people criticise without offering a better solution.

confluence4• 14 years ago

I've made up my own law of selfish libertarianism - if you'll indulge me:

> It's only a liability or an entitlement until you yourself need it - then it's a fucking right.

For example being a young white male born into a middle class western family affords you the ability to state "all I need is contract law - everything else is just impinging on my rights and forcing me to take on obligations I don't appear to benefit from - I deserve what I earn."

No health problems + family and state support + faulty logic + short sightedness + sex/race advantages = libertarianism.

Contract law is no more a right than free health care is. But one definitely serves your self interests better. Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare.

The lense people should be looking through is that of the weakest in society - not having a geek hissy fit and fantasizing of going Galt because you feel others are holding you back.

If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.

eli_gottlieb6• 14 years ago

Well, contract law and property-title enforcement. Take away private property and Mr. Libertarian isn't going to be so happy that people copied his program-code and took over his factory.

Hence why it's properly called proprietarianism: organizing society with private property as the prime principle.

yummyfajitas3• 14 years ago

Rights should be based on the veil of ignorance principle - the weak should be protected and the strong should pay for they are one car crash away from welfare.

Your moral values seems to hold that individuals have few rights, and that collectively we should operate from the principle of infinite risk aversion (i.e., the Rawlsian veil of ignorance). Great - we all agree that if these are your values, Libertarianism is not the political philosophy for you.

It's amusing that while mocking Rand, you make the exact same fallacy she makes in Atlas Shrugged: "anyone who disagrees with me must be evil and selfish, with no moral values."

If you don't like it - leave. Somalia is lovely this time of year I hear.

I'm constantly confused when those who oppose libertarianism bring up Somalia. What is the relevance?

jmcqk63• 14 years ago

Somalia is, or at least was, a land without a government. If libertarians or randians are correct, it should be a land flowing with milk and honey. Of course, this is not the case. At least, that is how the argument goes.

I'm a former libertarian of the anarcho-capatilist-rand flavor, and I think there are much better arguments against that stance than somalia.

swombat2• 14 years ago

Individuals have no rights. Rights only exist within the context of a group. Without a group, you're not talking about rights, you're just talking about ability.

gwern• 14 years ago

Libertarians have defended Somalia after people tried to use it as a reductio; quite explicitly, too, consider Leeson's "Better Off Stateless: Somalia Before and After" (http://peterleeson.com/better_off_stateless.pdf) which is pretty much what it sounds like. Hence, bringing up Somalia is perfectly fair.

confluence4• 14 years ago

Rights don't exist for individuals period. Groups define rights not individuals. Groups do so in their own self interest which we must temper to protect the weak from the strong - to do otherwise merely leads to revolution or collapse. If you want those - have it at - somewhere else.

pi18n• 14 years ago

I was also told Somalia might be a good choice for me when I was arguing against widespread government surveillance.

It's a strawman used by the intellectually lazy to posit that anyone who disagrees with sprawling government that has its fingers in everything must necessarily prefer anarchy, a form of government of which they have a quantum of anecdotal evidence showing it is not ideal.

I didn't see the original essay as Randian, did you? I thought the argument was that these things aren't ideal and there's no way to opt out; in fact for some people there's no way to opt out of even their native country.

snitko3• 14 years ago

There's a meme among libertarians about people suggesting they go visit Somalia. Really, don't bring it up unless you're prepared to discuss it in detail.

jacquesm• 14 years ago

I do not subscribe to the libertarian point of view. I considered 'armoring' the post against this exact accusation but it was long enough as it was without that but I guess I should have seen it coming.

You make a mistake in that you think that I disagree with the actual laws, I do with some of them (specifically: the obligation to buy certain products or services without the right to negotiate) but on the whole I agree with the 'package' and it is write there for you to read.

Selfishness doesn't enter my book, I gave away plenty of goods and money in my life to people that needed my things more than I did (or made the case that they did). In fact, I probably gave away more than I'm left with, I wonder if you can make the same statement.

Yes, the weak should be protected from the strong and I'm weak in plenty of ways. But I have this curiosity about why things are the way they are and if we can do better than this.

nacker• 14 years ago

Congratulations, you have just realized that you are owned by the Tax Farmers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k67_imEHTPE

wissler• 14 years ago

I know it's hard not to respond, but all the OP offered was sneering sarcasm; he in fact has given nothing to respond to, and for that he should be on the defensive, not you. Given all the upvotes he got for a fact-devoid sarcastic sneer post, that tells you something unfortunate about HN.

anonymoushn2• 14 years ago

I would like to exercise my right to free healthcare. Which doctor do I enslave?

Variance• 14 years ago

May I also add, in addition to the excellent rebuttals that other commenters have made to you, that you're making a false analogy between welfare and contract law by confusing positive and negative rights. Positive rights entitle people to something, while negative rights protect people from something. The ideals that most libertarian philosophies are based on maximize negative rights and minimize positive rights. This is based on the core insight that one person's positive rights can only ever come at the expense of another's negative rights. Also, strawman allusions to Somalia don't help this discourse.

eli_gottlieb6• 14 years ago

The problem being that libertarianism places a heavy emphasis on absolute private property, which is a positive right. It's my right to evict you by force from occupying an empty apartment in my building unless you pay me the rent I want.

Now, you can certainly argue coherently in favor of absolute private property (though I would argue back, extensively and in detail, against the absolutism), but to do so, you need to start by admitting that it's a positive right.

rglover2• 14 years ago

This article is brilliant. Each and every point Jacques makes is spot-on. I'm sure many will disagree with his stance, but he makes an excellent point. Irrespective of our personal preference, we are effectively locked in to and subordinate of our government and its policies. Any self-respecting human who has contemplated this should be sick to their stomach.

Realize this: we're floating in space. Not one soul on this planet knows why we're here, where we're going, or how we should conduct ourselves. In essence we've been handed our own "Gary's Mod" and yet we've resolved to have infinite and mostly useless structure. I'm not praising anarchy, but like what was mentioned in this piece, I should have a choice.

infinite8s2• 14 years ago

Why should you have a choice? Taking this article to it's logical conclusion, no obligations nor rights should be granted to you. As another commenter above mentioned so brilliantly, individuals don't have rights. Rights only arise in groups of individuals.

Buzaga2• 14 years ago

I fail to see the reason in that statement, why is it so brilliant?

rglover2• 14 years ago

We should all have a choice because we're all exactly the same. We're made of the exact same stuff that's floating out in the universe. There is no universal code that says one group of humans (or individual) should control/rule another. It's all made up by humans and it's going to kill us in the long run.

potatolicious• 14 years ago

Given how often libertarianism comes up around and here and some of the attitudes that are repeated demonstrated, it's pretty clear that a large segment of HN's population has never been in a disadvantaged situation in life, either in economics, geography, or race.

AngrySkillzz• 14 years ago

I'm not sure that this article is advocating libertarianism per-se, more that it is pointing out oddities in our current system. It doesn't make the claim that life would be better off with less support or regulation.

forensic• 14 years ago

They're only oddities to well-off straight white able-bodied males with no perspective. These "oddities" exist for good practical reasons and the government is there for all people not just the nerd faction who decide they only want the government functions that benefit them personally.

fghh45sdfhr3• 14 years ago

Holland right? Is that the place he is talking about? I wonder how he feels about Switzerland, or say Canada?

cafard• 14 years ago

According to Henry Sumner Maine, the development of law in the west was one of movement from status to contract. According to Mr. Mattheij, it hasn't gone far enough, I gather.

unreal37• 14 years ago

Ah Jacques. You've posted some brilliant articles, Three Roads to the Top of the Mountain[1] is among the best articles I've read on starting a business. In fact, I will go and read it again after posting this. And seek out some other good startup/business related articles you have written.

But this Life as a Service article is just incomprehensible to me coming from you. How selfish! How can the same person who posted the Top of the Mountain post write this? Not sure how life in the Netherlands is so much different from here in Canada, but the article is full of things that are either not true, or overblown. It's depressing to read, and a sad attempt to tear up the social contract we all must be a part of.

"I have no problem paying taxes, but I wish I had a choice about it."

You can't give people a choice about it. You can't have a society supported by some people with loads of people refusing to support it. (Too poor to support it is different.) And how can you complain about that AND complain that the rich and royalty are above the law? You're arguing both sides!

Maybe you want to go find a remote outpost in the Northern tip of your country that you truly get no government services provided to you - no roads, no police, no hospitals, no ID required, no electricity, no internet, or phone service... go do that. But if you are part of society, you must be part of the social contract. Better to accept that and go on to do (or write) something productive that adds value..

[1]http://jacquesmattheij.com/three+roads+to+the+top+of+the+mou...

Buzaga2• 14 years ago

I've thought about this some times, it's a hard thing to wrap logic around, definitely...

but here's two things that are a bit unsettling to me on this topic:

- life is paid, you can't just go to some abandoned place, raise chicken and plants and live off of it and if you can't pay for your life you either turn yourself into a slave(living to pay to be alive) or you're made into the worst thing possible, with all your dignity taken from you(be a bum and face everything that's left when you can't pay for a life, even the ones created by the system itself)

- why can't there be competition? it made me remember this article: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678720/former-seasteaders-come-a... what would happen if different state models were allowed to exist and they proved to be less corrupt, safer, fairer, happier and people just started migrating to this better states(from what I took they'd still live in capitalism)? I'm almost sure other governments wouldn't let it happen, and this takes me to another unsettling thought that is how, as much as people wan't freedom and dignity, governments want the power, they're barely ever accountable and they don't have competition, they own the game.

Well, just thoughts..

Life as a Service

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