I know some will take the more libertarian than thou attitude but what does that accomplish? In this case the system is at fault since it really prevents a free market from occurring. If the state is not too busy with physical wars those in power have no problem fueling a class war. Those on the right come off looking like they are on the side of the tax payer and the left are suppose to be champions of the downtrodden but only ones that emerge on top are the politicians. 

How difficult is it for someone start a small business in the UK? After my brother couldn't find work in Florida and foreclosed on his house he moved back to NY. Nobody was hiring his field so he had to open his own business but he had to jump through a few hoops to get his contractors and business licenses. Ziggy, with your vast knowledge of music you think you could work as a promoter, manager or something along those lines? I'd rather have more Malcolm McLaren types on the music scene and less Simon Cowell. 

Ziggy, I don't know your situation, so I will not make some sanctimonious comment.  As you guys have stated, it is the system that is the problem.  Most people are just trying to survive.  The free market has been subverted and private charities have been supplanted.  What are you supposed to do?  After all, I despise the TSA, but have to deal with them if I plan on making a living. 

What a scam.  The system forces you to utilize government services because there is no subsitite.  Then the statists say, how dare you criticize the State; it is helping you.  It's like Harry Browne said, "the government is good at one thing.  It breaks your leg, then hands you a crutch, and says, 'see, without me you couldn't walk.'"

While I certainly do not advocate it, in fact, think it is quite destructive, I don’t have as much a problem with welfare for the poor as I do with welfare for the rich--corporate welfare, subsidies, regulations, central banking privileges, etc. 

Here’s the deal.  We are all playing a rigged game.  All of us are affected by government in some way or another.  Most of these ways are unseen and therefore give ammunition to your critics.  Sometimes the system wins and we must play along to survive; that doesn’t mean that we endorse it. 

Out of the long line of people that use the government to their advantage, you would be at the very bottom of the list.  I know this sounds like a rationalization but in a government dominated society, its kind of hard to be pure.  I don't get mad at teachers for being paid in tax dollars.  Whether they are providing a "service" is besdies the point.  In the U.S. most education is run by the government.  If you want to teach, you're probably going to be working for the government.  Even Murray Rothbard taught at a State School, UNLV.  I'm sure that libertarians in the USSR were taking a government paycheck for some BS jobs.  Anyway, I hope you find something in what's left of your private sector.

Imagine what it would be like if welfare services were taken out of the hands of Govt and put into the hands of the private free-market. My bet is a voluntarist approach with mutual obligation in the private sphere, could only be a positive thing.

I proposed to a statist political staffer once that Govt run business support/creation programs should be run in the private sphere. Suffice to say I was laughed at.

Its amazing how what seems rational isn't that rational to those feeding at the trough.

Ditto to citizenx' comments, very concisely stated, I dug that.

mothyspace

I am a bit curious how the free market will address the huge number of tragedies in the world.  Let's take a case study.  You have an older couple that do not have any real family ties and they decide to have a child.  That child is born and is severly mentally handicapped.  This handicapped person will never be productive, and will require huge resources to sustain them throughout life.  So, the couple support their child to late teens and die of natural causes at a not so old age.  What do we do with this societal anchor?  They will need houseing, 24 hr. care, food, medical services, ect.  Should the doctor just offer 25 cents a pound at birth and just sell the infant to the dog food company?  Once the family cannot pay the expense of maintaining this person who will?  I can't see some business stepping in and paying 75k a year to keep this person alive.  I don't think that as a society we would have enough altruism to pay for people like this unless we personally knew the family.  Back in the day the child would have just been hit with a shovel and thrown in a hole.  I personally like that there are services that can help provide some care for these people even if it uses my taxes.  I like that there are programs to help people get back on their feet.   

Well government thieves it from the people 

If government didn't people would have more money to give to charities.

Well theoretically they would.  However, I think they would be using that non-taxed money to pay for those privately owned roads that have tolls, tolled bridges, school for kids, medical care, private libraries, private parks and they would not have the money to spend on charities.  Also, where does the altruism come from to spend huge resources on a person that is nothing more than a boat anchor due to genetic fate?  Or, is the free market answer to cull the herd and just euthanize the deformed and severly handicapped to harvest usable organs?

I realize that I am using some strong imagery, but I am trying to elixit a response.  I understand that people would theoritically have more money (but I think that would disapper as people have to pay essentially user fees for everything now that it is a privately owned resource).  So where does this massive outpouring of altruism from individuals and business.  If I was a business, my donations to charity would have to make me more money than I donated in increased business.  I just don't see how this free market is going to push moral or ethical decisions on a societal scale.  It has to benefit the individual.

Right.  That does not mean that a business it going to go through the expense of hiring them, setting up a workplace, and purchasing specialized equipment for them to do some work.  It would not make sense.  So, how in the free market that you envision will these people be taken care of?  Here is a video of a woman with severe Autism.  She is quite amazing really, especially later in the video when she starts using her speech machine.  She can type like 150 words a minute.  I think she would make an excellent research subject, but I cannot ever see her with a job that would support herself, or being able to do everyday things like cook without burning the house down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

This is a person that takes huge amounts of resources to maintain.  Why would the free market system bother with maintaining a person that is so inefficient?

Firstly as somebody who is physically disabled I find it somewhat patronising that folk on the left of the spectrum don't think disabled people have enough talent & imitative to get a job without state aid or that in the free market they'd not be market alternatives, correct me if I'm wrong but aren't there already employment & recruiting agencies in the private sector?

Secondly if a disabled person has special requirements such as special equipment then charities could adequately provide specialist equipment, as they already do, yeah it might come as a bit of a surprise that many who need electric chairs don't get them from the state but from private charities. If in a market anarchist society there are disabled people are going without the requirements they need then you & other like minded folk would be free to have a whip around to raise funds to provide disabled folk with whatever they need.

I was not trying to discuss people that are coherent and have some disabilities.  I was trying to address people that are so non-functional that they cannot work.  If you watch that video, she uses the speech machine because she gets to overstimulated to communicate or function.  She also uses a wheelchair when she is out in the public because she gets overstimulated and overwhelmed.  She will not work, she requires huge amounts of resources and I don't think the free market would do anything to help people like her. 

See it as a tax return, Zigg.

They stole your money, while you work. Now you're taking it back.

I hope you get work soon, man. It isn't easy out there.

Have you considered retraining?

Kind of

I can get sponsorship to do the Open Uni

Go for it, dude. It can only help.  

Yeah I'm going to just haven't decided between jounalism or law

@That Guy,

Concerning the free market culling the herd, perhaps some research into 20th century eugenics is in order.  In the U.S., it was perfectly okay for the State to order forced sterilizations "for the protection and health of the state."

History of eugenics in the U.S.

The market creates wealth which allows people to spend more money on things like charities.  The State, on the other hand, divides up the wealth pie that the market produces.  As the government impairs the market, the market gets smaller, and so does the pie.  Thus, the State is much more likely to cull the herd since the disabled require an ever-increasing percentage of the pie.  We often see this in distopian fiction like Brave New World and Logan's Run in which the State exterminates the elderly and the infirmed due to its inability to support them.

See also War Against the Weak by Edwin Black.

Its incidents such as the earthquake in Haiti ccna voice that many people will use as an argument for government & for big government, of course there are free market solutions to deal with humanitarian relief in incidents such as Haiti, mcts 70-536 we know for example that many are prepared to dip in their pocket & give vulnerary donations towards humanitarian ccna security aid.But we have Obama, brown & other heads of national governments on television saying what governments are doing no matter what the people living under those governments might think, but no one in the media it seems saying what the private sector are doing or what maybe the free market can do. mcse 70 291

There are advantages to being inbetween jobs I get to hang out with gard in London LOL