ah yes, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
Edit: It's an awful thing, and has failed every time it was tried, usually with unspeakable horrors inflicted on incalculable numbers of people. Many would rather die free than live in shackles, even if the shackles are of gold. Imposing involuntary obligations on people is indistinguishable from enslaving them.
"Ultra-capitalism" is just the state of nature without the violence. It is distributed rather than centralized authority. It is a liberal ecosystem in which organisms compete, succeed, and fail. Allowing people to bear the total consequences of their failure and misfortune is not immoral.
If you can't sustain yourself, the immoral and undignified thing is to impose on others. The only decent thing to do is accept their charity when freely given, not elect tyrants who will take by force.
Democracy is not an aim, it is a means to liberty. And an imperfect one at that, which I would be glad to see replaced when a better option becomes available (AI?). If the power of the government threatens the freedom of the people, the government must be replaced. So much is written in the constitution.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Ultra-capitalism is no better than ultra-communism. They are both systems designed to reduce democracy and to funnel all the money into the hands of a small number of elites.
I prefer to live in a society where people can feed themselves, or get sick, or lose their jobs, without losing their house or going bankrupt - regardless of the ideology de jure.
I'm not sure why you didn't just reply to my comment instead of updating yours.
Anyway, your points are ridiculous on the surface. You're deliberately conflating communism with democratic center-left policies, but they are not remotely comparable.
There are plenty of places in the world - most of modern Europe, for example - which have social safety nets where "unspeakable horrors" are not being "inflicted on incalculable numbers of people".
> Imposing involuntary obligations on people is indistinguishable from enslaving them.
This is complete nonsense. All societies impose involuntary obligations. You can't just do what you want in society and get away with it. You can't deliberately hurt people, can't speed in your car, you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, you can't forge your signature or deceive people into giving you money; force is largely monopolised by the state, limiting your freedoms in all sorts of different ways. You call to the constitution, the defining document of the US government, as if it doesn't impose any obligations on you. But you then say it requires you to revolt against the government.
The problem with arguments like yours is that you pick and choose what you consider to be "involuntary" obligations. I'm sure you feel that the very real involuntary obligations imposed by property law are perfectly OK with you, despite that, taken to its extreme, this literally creates a system of indentured servitude, examples of which include bankruptcy for getting sick, and lifetime loans for getting an education.
This whole liberty-or-die thing is just as corrupt. Your kind of liberty is strictly about the freedom to do whatever the hell you want, with no obligation to the liberty of others. All you care about is your "positive freedoms", the freedom to "do", but you couldn't care less about the more important freedoms: freedom from hunger, freedom from fear, freedom from homelessness, freedom from pain.
These freedoms are the most important freedoms of all; without them, true liberty is impossible.
This is relatively recent, and has proven itself quite fragile. Democracies elect dictators. Dictators of powerful governments commit atrocities. There is no "don't elect dictators" solution. The only solution is to disempower the government. Also European nations are relatively small and relatively culturally homogenous. There is no functioning liberal democracy of a large multicultural state.
> All societies impose involuntary obligations
There is a vast difference between outlawing violent behaviour and mandating cooperation. The latter is indistinguishable from slavery. Free societies don't compel the cooperation of their citizens beyond the strict minimum necessary to maintain liberty itself. Even being conscripted into the army, which is slavery, can be justified if it is to defend against a foe who would destroy liberal society.
It is however categorically not justified to mandate contribution to various insurance schemes and welfare programs. There is no picking and choosing here. I want my interactions with the state to maximize for consent[1]. I want the ability to out out. I am not owed medical treatment if I'm sick. I would like the ability to choose whether to incur an obligation or not.
> freedom to do whatever the hell you want
Yes!
> no obligation to the liberty of others
No. My rights to wave my fists around end where your nose begins.
> freedom from hunger, freedom from fear, freedom from homelessness, freedom from pain
These aren't freedoms, they're obligations. Obligations on others to provide you with food and housing and emotional support (freedom from fear? really?). Obligation is exactly the thing that free people aim to be free of. Being free isn't the same thing as being taken care of. It's about being able to do whatever the hell you want, and interact with others on a consensual basis.
> My rights to wave my fists around end where your nose begins.
because the latter can only be prevented through either obligation or force.
> There is no functioning liberal democracy of a large multicultural state.
I won’t bother trying to argue against this, because it’s so vague that you will just change the definitions as we go along. But there are at least two very large countries that most widely-read people would consider to meet your definition.
> There is a vast difference between outlawing violent behaviour and mandating cooperation.
This is utter nonsense. Outlawing violent behaviour obviously requires cooperation, without which violence cannot be prevented. But of course, once again, you’re cherry-picking your obligations; the entire premise of your argument is flawed because your arguments are entirely subjective and internally inconsistent.
> The latter is indistinguishable from slavery.
You keep muttering this laughable nonsense as if it’s some kind of enlightenment, but all it does is trivialise slavery, and underscores how ridiculous your black-and-white views really are.
Seizing 100% of a person's economic output is slavery right? The rest is just a matter of degree.
> beyond the strict minimum necessary to maintain liberty itself
You missed this part. Yes you can mandate cooperation (read: enslave) to protect fundamental liberty (police, courts, military, rights of way, etc). You can even literally enslave people by drafting them into the army if your liberal nation is under attack.
What you you can't do in a free society is enslave people to pay for healthcare, education, social security, or anything else unrelated to protecting fundamental liberty from a direct threat. The mandate of the federal government was thus limited until US v. Butler (1936). There are no contradictions here, this is literally how it used to work. This is what liberty used to mean. Being free to do anything that directly injures no one else.
> You say it like it’s a bad thing.
Fear is just as inevitable a part of life as joy. It's not escapable. Pretending you have a right not to feel it is absurd.
> Seizing 100% of a person's economic output is slavery right?
This is a ridiculous argument. Just because the statement is true, doesn’t mean it follows that you can measure enslavement as a percentage of economic output or that any value greater than zero is “indistinguishable” from slavery. You’re just trolling.
I mean, if I have to spend 100% of my economic output supporting my sick partner because there is no healthcare safety net, by your own definition I am now enslaved by your kind of “liberty” - entirely because it is dogmatically closed to any kind of mandated cooperation.
What a world you dream to live in - a nightmare for all but the strongest.
> beyond the strict minimum necessary to maintain liberty itself
I ignored this because, conveniently, you also get to choose what constitutes “the strict minimum necessary to maintain liberty itself” - making your reasoning perfectly circular. “It is this way because it must be this way”.
> Fear is just as inevitable a part of life as joy
Society can work to reduce fear, and increase joy. But these are not the likely outcomes of the world of your fever dreams.
> US v. Butler (1936)
I am not familiar with US case law but my understanding is that this case reinforced the limitations on the federal government. In any case it reads like yet another cartoonish non-sequitur.
Here’s where I’m going to get of this bus of stupid.
> "Ultra-capitalism" is just the state of nature without the violence.
It's really not. That's the line pushed by Enlightenment thinkers (e.g. Rousseau, Hume) who didn't actually know what they're talking about. A few centuries of anthropology later and we know that a lot of other societies are characterized by mutual aid. One randomly chosen example: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801707
A better alternative is simply to require companies to pay a living wage.
The outcome is better, because you don’t lose the safety net for those who still need it.