By “set oil prices” I mean “set the price of the oil they sell,” which they do, even if they determine what price to sell at based on the global market.

I would agree with that, but OPEC doesn’t set oil prices. OPEC countries account for about 1/3rd of the world’s production, and their oil is sold internationally on the same markets as everyone else.

“that entire tangent is irrelevant because nobody except for the citizens of the Middle Eastern nations that form OPEC has a more legitimate claim to ownership of Middle Eastern oil than the OPEC member governments do, so those governments have a right to set whatever price they see fit on the commodities they export.”

The conclusion is clearly not entailed by the premises. I think it’s patently true that certain people (whether they be citizens or not) within certain Middle Eastern countries have legitimate claims to ownership of oil wells in the Middle East than OPEC does. There is no way, however, to move from that premise to the conclusion that OPEC has the right to set oil prices — because the member states of OPEC have illegitimately and coercively obtained control over their oil fields.

“but otherwise your claim that their governments are illegitimate still doesn’t make that oil any more yours than theirs, so you’ve still got no grounds to demand oil price changes.”

Except… I never claimed I had any legitimate right to possession, use, or control of their oil AND I’ve never made any demand to “oil price changes.”

So… what?

It’s arguably true that I’m slightly to the “left” of Rothbard (although to be honest, I don’t think that “left” and “right” are particularly useful political distinctions), but nothing I’ve said in this thread about the legitimacy of government’s claims to “property” is significantly different than anything Rothbard has argued in something like, say, “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle.”

That’s not just a troll, that’s a cop troll. That’s the standard line cops and cop wannabees on the internet use against anyone who is against the war on drugs.

No, I’m just not restricting my application of economics to an unreasonably narrow range of interactions because it happens to support my point.

It’s pretty clear that you’re not using, as your initial posts clearly suggested, the economic terms “supply” and “demand” in any meaningful economic sense.

No, I’m just not restricting my application of economics to an unreasonably narrow range of interactions because it happens to prove my point. Coercive interactions are part of the market. Entities that engage in coercive interactions are affected by the market. The rules of the market aren’t just restricted to a subset of approved entities and transactions.

What you’re arguing about is the optimal use of the market and a) I’m not disagreeing with you that voluntary interactions between individuals work best, and b) that entire tangent is irrelevant because nobody except for the citizens of the Middle Eastern nations that form OPEC has a more legitimate claim to ownership of Middle Eastern oil than the OPEC member governments do, so those governments have a right to set whatever price they see fit on the commodities they export. You, on the other hand, seem to be arguing that because you consider the OPEC members’ governments to be illegitimate, they therefore have no right to price the oil they export as they wish. Which may or may not be a valid point if you’re speaking as one of those repressed Middle Eastern citizens I referred to, but otherwise your claim that their governments are illegitimate still doesn’t make that oil any more yours than theirs, so you’ve still got no grounds to demand oil price changes.

Anarcho-socialism indeed.

I’ll play your game (you rogue) if you state a position. So far you’ve only attacked UCrawford for recognizing that oil is a commodity sold largely by socialist countries. I have no idea why that’s such an objectionable observation.

“In this sense, your use of the phrase “supply and demand” is outright obfuscatory, since it pretends to explain everything from the economic equilibrium of price and quantity to a mass popular uprising (and smaller intra-Party elite uprising) aimed at overthrowing an established political order.”

Do you understand that mainstream economics studies more than than the transaction of widgets? Individuals study the costs (taxes, reduced freedom) and benifits (fire dept., roads) of having a particular government the same way they study the costs (capital investment, increased liability) and benifits (increased revenue) of producing one more widget.

Nice try on the Rothbard thing. I’ve read enough of your posts to know that you’re to his left. I think you’re all the way over in anarcho-socialist land. If you’re not, I don’t care.

It’s a pretty sad day for libertarianism when you can’t tell the difference between “standard Chomsky” and Rothbard 101.

Yikes!

It’s pretty clear that you’re not using, as your initial posts clearly suggested, the economic terms “supply” and “demand” in any meaningful economic sense. Rather, you’re taking a concept from economics and using it as a vague metaphor for something like all the types of ways in which one group of people can exert can influence over another. In this sense, your use of the phrase “supply and demand” is outright obfuscatory, since it pretends to explain everything from the economic equilibrium of price and quantity to a mass popular uprising (and smaller intra-Party elite uprising) aimed at overthrowing an established political order. Nice try, but… no. Your central argument is an empty metaphor. Do better.

No matter how you try to dress it up, looking at the posts from the regulars there is no way you could be trying to cater to liberty and freedom. The only freedom many that post here care about is getting stoned. They want to get stoned and have a guarenteed job for life.

I comment here fairly regularly, I’ve never demanded guaranteed employment, and my pro-legalization position isn’t based at all on a desire to get stoned (as I don’t use). So if you don’t care to hear what people here actually have to say, by all means feel free to jog on, troll.

Could you quote some of the posts here that support your assertion?

As for your example, you’re arguing about efficiency of free market practices between individuals and government, and I’m not disagreeing with you on that point. Individuals clearly achieve better results than governments do.

However, you’re extending that argument claim that government is not at all held accountable for its actions and that’s simply an untrue proposition. Governments collapse all the time because of their actions. Countries go broke all the time because of their actions. Revolutions and civil wars break out all the time because the people (who are agents of the free market) hold their government accountable for its actions. These are all consequences of economics holding governments accountable. You’re trying to make your point off of examples that represent a small sample size and you’re missing the forest for the trees.

The problem is that the government does NOT have to respond to supply and demand the way people who are within the ambit of voluntary human transactions do…

I’m sorry but that’s not accurate. The government eventually has to respond to the free market the same as any other entity…they just do so much more slowly and ineffectively than individuals do. That’s what eventually brought down the Soviet Union…it’s inability to react to supply and demand, inability to sustain their spending, inability to meet the public’s needs for goods and services, etc.. It may take longer for the effects of the market to become apparent when it’s acting on government, but they are there and government is still accountable to the market, same as anything else. It just usually doesn’t work out so well for governments as it does for individuals.

…BECAUSE it has non-market methods of obtaining funds: the use of coercive taxation (and other forms of outright theft)

That’s really no different from Enron using stock fraud, deceit and shady accounting to hide the fact they were going broke. What happened to Enron was an effect of the market catching up to them for poor business practices. What happens to governments who increasingly tax their people to cover for their bad spending habits are that their people become poorer, the services the government offers degrade and government is then forced to change. Like I said, the process of being held accountable is much slower for government (which is part of why government is such an unresponsive organism, but it’s still there.

“Property,” at least in the meaningful sense of the term, involves a moral claim about the rightful owner of a thing.

Right, and the definition “rightful owner” is not restricted to only individuals. Property can be legitimately held by a corporation, a community, a trust, or any number of different entities…and that includes government.

Saudi Arabia may “own” the oil fields of the country in the glib sense of exercising control via overwhelming force, but the oil fields of Saudi Arabia are no more legitimately the property of the Saudi Arabian government than mob money obtained through extortion. They may exercise (total) control, but they are NOT the rightful owners in any meaningful sense of the term.

Respectfully, you’re arguing against a straw man. You’re arguing about the morality of specific methods of acquiring property…and those methods are not the only ones available to government. Governments are capable of obtaining their property through legitimate means (donation by private individuals, for instance, as happened with multiple tracts of land in Yellowstone). And whether or not the Saudi government’s method of acquiring their property was legitimate or moral is beside the point…the point is that none of the parties outside of the Middle East who are complaining about the tactics the Saudis and OPEC use when pricing that oil have a more legitimate ownership claim to that oil than the OPEC nations do.

We might do a little thought experiment to determine just how “accountable” the government is to “the market.”

Compare, for example, privately hired security forces to say, your local paramilitary police forces. If I hire a security guard to watch over my store, and he engages in say, a continuous train of abuse, invasion, and physical violence against my customers in a manner akin to the way police run roughshod over the people that they are putatively “protecting” – I could simply fire his ass. The free market at work. Yet despite the fact that my earnings are extorted from me through involuntary taxation, my “hired public servants” feel entirely at liberty to spy upon me, control what activities I can engage in with other people, and threaten kick in my door in the middle of the night to make sure I’m not growing or using any substances in the privacy of my own home that I might enjoy but that they think I shouldn’t have. Yet try as I might, and despite absolutely no “demand” for those serves on my part, the “supply” of government stormtroopers seems to grow wildly out of control.

The problem is not that the government is inefficient . The problem is that the government does NOT have to respond to supply and demand the way people who are within the ambit of voluntary human transactions do BECAUSE it has non-market methods of obtaining funds: the use of coercive taxation (and other forms of outright theft). The forcible deprivation of property is NOT an aspect of the “free market,” and if your position is that IT IS then there’s _nothing_ outside of the free market (and the term is a nullity).

“Property,” at least in the meaningful sense of the term, involves a moral claim about the rightful owner of a thing. Saudi Arabia may “own” the oil fields of the country in the glib sense of exercising control via overwhelming force, but the oil fields of Saudi Arabia are no more legitimately the property of the Saudi Arabian government than mob money obtained through extortion. They may exercise (total) control, but they are NOT the rightful owners in any meaningful sense of the term.