The only hope, if there is one, is when people will become collectively enraged and dismantle the govt to a large extent (similar to the current attempt in USA) and not rely solely on fiat currency (another way the govt controls the populace).
So how do you envision people flourishing in this anarchist/libertarian utopia? Most people at the bottom of the income scale are much more dependent on a functioning government to meet their basic needs. If you want to make their lives better while cutting away the services they depend on for healthcare, education, transportation, food safety, disaster relief and recovery, and on and on -- if you want them to be better off without all that, they need to earn better wages. Well, the DOGE folks -- "the current attempt in USA" --are focusing their attention on destroying the mechanisms that would make this possible.
A problem with an unregulated economy is that your ability to get a good deal depends on your ability to evaluate the deal and walk away from it if it's bad. If you're hanging from a cliff edge by your fingertips, you're not in a good bargaining position relative to the guy standing on solid ground. You'll pawn your future to live another hour. The government is the mechanism we have to prevent this abuse -- minimum wage laws, child labor laws, OSHA. Take all this away and you have more slavery, not less.
Another problem: if you want to start a business or invest or build anything, you depend on predictability. Is the city going to still be here and functioning next year? If yes, open a store front! If not, move on. The government is one of the main sources of this stability. It collects information, makes economic forecasts, manages the interest rates (with its fiat currency), handles disasters, prevents invasions. This allows businesses to flourish, providing jobs for the masses. Without that economic activity dries up. People get poorer. Some starve. Some die due to lawlessness, war, and unrest.
But you don't see it this way. Please explain how destroying the government and relying on gold or bitcoin will bring prosperity to the masses. I really want to understand your perspective.
Did I use the words anarchist/libertarian/utopia? How do you see people flourishing in the current situation with too much govt? OP was a post by the person facing a real word situation: nothing to hope for. What can you offer him?
>destroying the government and relying on gold or bitcoin will bring prosperity
Again you are putting words in my mouth. did I talk about gold or bitcoin? You do understand what big govt vs small govt is, vs destroying the govt?
Well you talked about ending reliance on fiat currency, and those are the two most common non-fiat currencies (or backings thereof). Not sure what else you could've meant; maybe seashells? Or doing away with money entirely and reverting to bartering and/or gift economies?
I did not say 'ending reliance'. If the fiat does not inflate, by all means use it. If it does ( and normally does) one has to have the _option_ of opting out. Currently in most places in the world where taxes are imposed that option of opting out is not there. Not using fiat money is either illegal, or if you did transact by other means you will have to pay the government the equivalent of a tax in fiat. The over arching point that I'm trying to make is to ot give govt options to unreasonably controls your life. The government should be there to serve you not the other way around.
What one uses as an alternative to the fiat should be up to you. (which is a whole big topic in itself and _significantly_ larger than a discussion on gold or bitcoin)
That would constitute ending reliance on it.
> What one uses as an alternative to the fiat should be up to you. (which is a whole big topic in itself and _significantly_ larger than a discussion on gold or bitcoin)
In practice, not really. Maybe some quibbling on which specific precious metal or which specific cryptocurrency, but in a non-fiat world your options are going to boil down to one of those two categories of alternatives, with the differences within those categories being implementation details that most people don't care to know.
I can imagine some answers: There are people who will suffer more or more directly and they don't like those people, so it will be cathartic for them. I witness a lot of people for whom this is clearly a really big benefit. Or maybe they value particular social structures or customs -- strict gender norms, obedience of women to men, children to adults, certain ethnic or racial groups to others -- more than they value material wealth, health, or security, and they believe Musk's gutting of the government will achieve this. Perhaps they are accelerationists who think things need to get really bad before a revolution will bring utopia. Perhaps they are millenarians who believe Musk is accelerating the End Times and the Rapture. Perhaps they wish to accelerate global warming in order to shift climates zones, making Siberia more habitable and depopulating Africa and South Asia so Russians can grow wheat on glacial till and sell it desperate people in the Global South.
These are all non-economic reasons, though, and in the current context it seems unlikely that that was what you had in mind. I'm just curious what you did have in mind.
Let me ask you this: What subjective value would you assign as % of the govt that is wasteful/corrupt expenditure? ( a ball park is fine) . And have you listened to Elon/doge side of the story? If so paste the link.
If you and I are not on the same page then it's not worth having a discussion.
Because it would be foolish for me to argue with people, who have little life experience/skills/exposure but have opinionated views. I try and access where people life experience/skills/exposure stand and then decide to engage.
>I've already provided vastly more information about my understanding of the world.
Below is an example of your very incomplete world view:
>Another problem: if you want to start a business or invest or build anything, you depend on predictability. Is the city going to still be here and functioning next year? If yes, open a store front! If not, move on. The government is one of the main sources of this stability. It collects information, makes economic forecasts, manages the interest rates (with its fiat currency), handles disasters, prevents invasions. This allows businesses to flourish, providing jobs for the masses. Without that economic activity dries up. People get poorer. Some starve. Some die due to lawlessness, war, and unrest.
You have not stated how corrupt the govt can be, only stated the good that govt does. And you have not stated anything particularly insightful.
To answer your question:
>What is your vision of how destroying the government a la Musk/Trump is going to make the common folk better off?
Is not cutting expenditure and a lot of associated corruption not good enough? Of course any cutting the expenditure is framed as removing aid from the needy. Does one need to have a vision?
( why the f** are you using words like 'vision', and then 'destruction' etc. ? - arguing in bad faith, and putting more words in my mouth)
Maybe if you're so scared of offering your ideas you shouldn't opine about stuff publicly.
Capitalism itself has no function against wealth accumulation besides taxation, although the efficacy is questionable.
So how does non-FIAT and dismantling the government help? Even less taxation... in a currency that can't be controlled - the capitalist dream, I guess?