Rawmustard, my point is that all the examples of a government 'duping' the public into going to war were in fact, a government practicing exclusive power to send the country to war by ITSELF- the people were never, in any way, shape or form, capable of affecting this decision.
Yet one of the only countries in which the people actually DO have a say happens to be one of the only countries that is politically neutral and has a long peace record to boast.
My argument is that democracy is hardly to blame when all the nations went to war without the consent of the people and more democracy in the country points otherwise.
You do have a good point about limiting circumstance only to an actual direct attack though.

Peter- the problem with the argument about what if the majority goes nasty is to ask what happens if a politician decides to instead?
They would be bound by the same rules of the constitution, and the only difference is the need for a bigger concensus of agreement, and the likelyhood that the voters would understand the policy would, effectively, likely be enforced unto themselves among everyone else, and more likely to do so on moral grounds- while a politician stands more likely to exclusively benefit and isolate themselves.

Poirot
I have asked how your belief could be falsified and you have not shown how it could be. If a belief can’t be falsified it means it’s not rational.

A state is defined by
1. its claim of a legal monopoly on the use of violence
2. taxation, which for anyone else is the felony of demanding money with menaces, etc.
3. a claim of a right to ultimate decision-making. This gives it an interest in entering, or even provoking, conflicts which it then decides in its own interest, of which the current wars are a classic example.

It is these violations of everyone else’s liberty and property that enable all the downstream abuses, such as the wars.

So while you may not excuse these abuses, you continue to justify the original violations that make them possible and inevitable. That’s the whole point.

And the justifications cannot withstand critical scrutiny. The state’s claims to superior morality are completely baseless, as are its claim to superior knowledge or capacity.

Your method consists entirely of seeing something you don’t like and a) blaming capitalism regardless of the state’s role, and b) assuming the state’s superior virtue and efficacy.

As to its inputs, while ever the state’s revenue comes from taking other people’s property without their consent by threatening to lock them up, it is false to say that it has a “partnership” with any of its subjects.

As to its outputs, these consist entirely of giving away other people’s property as bribes for votes. It has no more of a partnership with capitalism than it does with religion, single mothers, or farmers.

As I have demonstrated, your assumptions that employment is intrinsically exploitative, and that the state is presumptively virtuous, are completely circular and irrational. You have been unable to either defend your argument, or refute my critique of it; other than by endlessly re-asserting the tenets of neo-Marxism.

While ever people’s defence of the state is thus immune to evidence and reason, its gross abuses are inevitable. The fault lies not with private property, but uncritical worship of the State.

Peter,

Some people might not define the State as violating everyone's liberty - they might instead consider that it avails a modicum of liberty to a portion of the population that otherwise would be more enslaved than they are.
Depends on your standpoint.

In any case, my argument here is not to defend the apparatus of government or to extol its virtues. It has to do with the State as a mechanism to keep the population within its borders in a relatively contented mindset.
If the standards hadn't been elevated by state intervention, then the proletariat wouldn't have been able to participate to the fullest extent in the consumption of goods - aside from the fact that without the cotton wool of social protection, they would have eventually revolted (the huddled masses and all that)
The reason it all keeps rolling along in such a wasteful and wanton fashion is because Western societies are insulated and fairly comfortable - this would not have occurred without protective social mechanisms.
That is the basis of my argument that there is indeed a partnership between government and capitalism.

You still haven't shown how your view could be falsified, so your method continues to be to presume that the state has a superior morality or conscience, and beneficence. This underlies your belief that it raised the standard of living of the masses. I don't know whether you are aware of this, but that is actually in issue. It comes out of Marxist and neo-Marxist theory. But Marx's theory was wrong.

So the problem is, we're not having a dialogue of reason. You do not give any reason why anyone should believe that
- the state represents a higher morality
- the state represents society
- it is more representative of the people than the people are of themselves
- it can conjure benefits simply by passing laws
- it is not greedy or exploitative, but the consensual transactions it violently overrides are
etc. etc. etc.

You merely assume these premises. And when they are disproved, your response it to just keep on repeating them.

The state didn't elevate standards *when all costs are considered*. That's the whole point. If it did, there would be no need for anyone to engage in productive activity. We could just pass laws that everyone is a millionaire and hey presto! It's an irrational belief.

Thus as against the reason and evidence to think that the relation between state and society is one of parasite and predator to host and prey, you do not give any reason to think that it is beneficial, apart from mere circular presumption without basis in reason or evidence.

Hello Peter,

I'm not defending State morality...really, I'm not....In fact, I'm inclined to agree with you that government acts with dubious integrity at the best of times and doesn't have any substantive morality above its own survival.
You said - "The State didn't elevate standards" - my point is that it acted as "regulator"...no doubt, the cost incurred by the raising of standards was procured from taxes.
My only point (she says, visibly wilting) is that, in my opinion, the State has aided and abetted the flourishing of capitalism.

Thanks for keeping an open mind LOL.

The state has aided and abetted capitalism in the sense that it has paid companies to provide goods that the state wanted, and those companies profited and grew. The military-industrial complex, the space industry, surveillance, security, tazers, handcuffs, tanks, aircraft carriers. And the banking/inflation industries: the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the industries which flourished because of credit expansion, McMansions – bubble industries: followed by dreadful misery, bankruptcy and unemployment.

But all this means is that the state has distorted a large part of the structure of capital, or production, in favour of violent aggression and fraudulent activity, and spending on boondoggles which while grand, are not what people consider the most important and urgent needs.

So we have to ask, what benefits might have come into existence if that vast amount of treasure had been left in the hands of the population, subject to a general law against aggressive violence and fraud? What developments in *peace* not war, in arts, technology, sciences, medicines, hospitals, appliances, improvement of the lives of the poor, fashion, leisure, entertainment, what wonderful benefits would have taken place, that were utterly wasted by states with their infernal bad habits of warring, empires, aggression, extortion, privileges for favourites, and meddling in everything?

We will never know, precisely because they have never come into existence. The only thing we do know is that the people preferred them, they were a higher value than what the state produced – otherwise tax would not have been necessary.

Yes there were benefits, in the sense that if I take money from you, and give it to me, there is a benefit. Yes companies profited. People receiving favours and handouts benefited.

But there is not a *net* benefit. We as a society are not better off; but much worse off.

People criticise the greed of capitalism but the shoe is on the other foot. The spectre of eternal war and corruption will continue until people can renounce the greed of using the state to get a coerced benefit by violating others.