Marketism/beliefs

Core free-marketist beliefs include:

Confirmed

• Taxation is theft.
  • "A group of people you may or may not have gotten on the same team with, uses force to take your money and uses it for things you don't want."
  • However, this is apparently not an argument that governments shouldn't exist; it's just an argument that nobody should be forced to support them.
    • "No one forces you to drive a car by holding a gun to your head. The same can not be said for paying taxes."
• Government is violent by definition.
• Government has a monopoly on force.
  • A government is a group of people who claim a monopoly on the initiation of force in a given geographical area.
• Government is founded on the immoral principle "that it is valid to initiate violence against those you outnumber or outpower. Essentially, that collectivism grants morality."
• Physical coercion is always wrong.
  • "The initiation of force, threat of force, or fraud used against the life, liberty, or property of another is wrong."

rights

• All people have a right to property.
  • That includes guns.
• All modern laws and regulations are enforced through violence or threat of violence.
  • Using coercion (violence or threat of violence) against another human being is a violation of human rights.
  • All modern laws therefore inherently violate human rights.
• Government can't grant rights.

natural rights

• All people are born with the same rights (called "natural rights").
• The US Constitution and Bill of Rights merely acknowledges these natural rights; it does not define them.
• If you're willing to support state coercion against those who break rules that don't infringe on natural rights (as given in the Constitution), then you can't claim to be moral, just, or a supporter of human rights.
• If rights came from other people (rather than being innate), then those same people could take them away (and make you a slave).
  • ...and they would be justified in doing so.
    • Implication: If someone gives you something, they are justified in taking it back later.
• If you don't believe in natural rights, then you don't believe all people were created equal.
  • When people are "created equal", that means they all have the same natural rights.
    • "We are all created equal by whatever creator we believe [...] and thus share the same natural rights."
    • This is the interpretation intended by the US founding fathers.
      • "That was, and has been, the only interpretation the founders ever meant."

Sources Needed

I'm pretty sure these were confirmed by Hirsh, but I need to find the specific conversation:

• Without government, political power derives solely from reputation.
• Unwanted monopolies cannot exist without government.
• Most coercion originates from government.
• Government is the primary thing forcing people to associate with others they do not wish to associate with.
  • (...which ignores factors such as non-portability of major assets such as land and housing)
• A society without government would not have extreme wealth or power inequality.
• In a society without government, any entity that acted malevolently would become unprofitable and thereby disempowered.
• This article seems like pretty strong evidence against the following assertions (which do need to be verified):
  • coercion isn't necessary because most people are good and trustworthy
  • anarchy is a stable social arrangement; government doesn't arise naturally
  • criminal organizations only exist because of government corruption
  • markets do better without external regulation
  • markets are possible without external regulation
  • coercion is unnecessary for a civil society
  • a free market will prevent agents from acting in socially destructive ways

Unconfirmed

• All political power comes from government.
• Government is not inherently something desirable.
• A society without government would be more free.
  • (They've clearly argued that government is bad, but haven't supported the contention that their proposal would be better. When challenged on this point, they tend to make a fallacious comparison between how they would like things ideally and how things really are now with governments.
• Only virtue leads to success; success (i.e. making money) is therefore, by definition, virtuous. (see fairness fallacy)
  • Therefore: Anyone who is rich deserves every penny of their wealth.
    • Therefore: Anything which interferes -- or appears to be interfering -- with market forces is a source of injustice (i.e. moving rewards from those who deserve them to those who do not)
      • Therefore: Government interference with the market is evil.
        • Therefore: Government regulation is evil, regardless of the evil said regulation may be trying to prevent.
• The results of failing to coerce, however, are of no moral consequence.
• All rights are individual; groups do not have any rights.
• All valid social obligations are negative; there are no positive obligations to society.
• Only government regulation can cause monopolies.
  • More generally, excessive private power only exists because it is able to exploit excessive government power.
    • Implication: all excessive power is created by government.
• It is the government's fault that its regulatory power is abused [W] by powerful interests. (If that power didn't exist, then it couldn't be abused.)

Some free-marketeers [Who?] also express the belief that there is no such thing as society (after Margaret Thatcher's famous statement to this effect) as a way of attacking the concept of (positive) social obligation, but apparently not all of them agree with this.

There is also commonly an expressed belief that reward is proportional to effort, and that hard work will pay off.