Rothbard vs. CATO’s Richard Epstein on the Benefits of Violent Looting

Adam Liptak and Richard Epstein discuss the most efficient way to rob people.



After listening to Epstein run his ivory tower mouth, my fury over his nonsensical BS hath runneth over. A video reading of the following article can be found here for those of you that don’t have the patience to read long text articles.

Epstein admits that, “There is no coercive action by government which will have the same beneficent effects of voluntary transactions in competitive markets,” yet flushes his own statement down the toilet when he adds, ”but you can’t get competitive markets with respect to the provision of public goods and you can’t get competitive markets with respect to the operation of network industries.”

Epstein never bothers to explain why “public goods” are of such necessary importance that VIOLENCE against PEACEFUL PEOPLE should be advocated in order to pay for them.

Epstein lists off a few so-called libertarian economists that support the initiation of violence against the innocent to pay for public goods, including Locke and Hayek, but he never bothers to mention the rest of the libertarian economics field, the majority of which disagree with the legitimization of the initiation of violence.


A full reading of Rothbard's response to this nonsense:



The text of the reading can be found here.

reply to post by mnemeth1


I'm not really getting where he advised violence against peaceful people anywhere? The entire discussion is about taxation and the different methods of taxation in correlation to the perceived value of service to taxes rendered as a percentage to income and usage....

There is no coercive action by government which will have the same beneficent effects of voluntary transactions in competitive markets,

Which also means "There is no compulsory or required by law from a government to demand taxation for public services that have the same beneficent effects of voluntary taxation"

It goes into a more archaic (old) Classical Liberal theory of no taxes but the Government will uphold a series of public services (such as medical care and education) that, when you decide or have to use it, you pay a tax in the form of a fee. this way only those volunteering to use a service pay for the service. This is obviously impossible in a competitive market. You destroy competition, eventually the Government is the only game in town which leads to eventual failings of quality due to lack of competition.

This theory is the basic underlying ancestor of the "flat tax" via sales tax .. you only pay a tax for what you spend, if you want lower taxes you spend less (and end up saving double from taxes and lower consumption)..

He goes on to explain that compulsory (coercive) taxes on consumer goods such as gas while seem fair because everyone pays them are in fact unevenly distributed.. to many factors are included to determine the fairness of the taxation .. hence a flat tax on all goods purchased is one of the best forms of taxation as far as " perceived value per dollar paid in taxation"

reply to post by Rockpuck


To the OP all taxes are forms of violence as they take what is rightfully earned away from the person. One could say there is the threat of violence because if you don't pay you will go to the pookey, everyone knows that.

I tend to take a dim view on all current systems as I think they are wasteful and will eventually grind to halt as resources (not money, actual physical resources) begin to become scare.

reply to post by antonia


That's exactly right. The tax system is ultimately predicated on weapons and dungeons.

For us low level peons, the State will typically confiscate bank accounts, threaten bank levies, steal property, repossess property, force your employer to take a portion of your paycheck and give it to them, etc.. etc.. But for people like Wesley Snipes, the violence of the tax system is all to apparent.

reply to post by antonia


Yeah.. I get it.. however he makes another valid point for Libertarian ideologies: A society cannot function without some form of taxation, it is a necessity for the betterment of society as a whole. Their are two forms of main taxation .. voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary taxation can be in forms of sales taxes or levies on specific goods and services, or as I point out in my previous post per service rendered .. they are to volatile for society to function as a whole, and can be just as unequal as a income based tax. The biggest problem with the Untied States tax code is that it is involuntary and voluntary at the same time, but at both ends is highly unfair to certain people (mainly the Middle Class) .. However saying there should simply be no taxation of any kind at all is simply an unintelligent answer to a legitimate issue. A flat tax (a coercive taxation method of across the board income tax percentage or consumption tax) is the "most fair" form of taxation, because a tax per service rendered, as the video said: There is no coercive action by government which will have the same beneficent effects of voluntary transactions in competitive markets, but you can’t get competitive markets with respect to the provision of public goods and you can’t get competitive markets with respect to the operation of network industries.