Calling All Libertarians!

[junebeetle]

In the interest of being a responsible poster, I have already searched the archives for recent debates on libertarianism. Nonetheless, I still have a few questions that I would like addressed. I apologize if you are offended by well-worn debates.

I understand that the Libertarian Party is the most popular third-party in the United States. A few semesters ago I had a libertarian computer science professor. He seemed like a nice enough guy, although he almost killed one of the students in a freak accident with an overhead projector (another story). Of course his political leanings were irrelevant to the course --- I only know about his politics because I happened across a link to his personal home page from our class web site.

I have a somewhat fragmented picture of libertarianism. I do know that libertarians believe government should play a minimal role in both social and fiscal policy. A libertarian government would at most enforce contracts and provide for law-enforcement and national defense. Consequently, libertarians are both free market capitalists (like most conservatives) and civil libertarians (like most liberals).

I'm not going to pick on libertarian social policy because I am a civil libertarian myself, but I do have problems with a libertarian economy. Okay, here come the questions:

Has a libertarian society ever existed in history? If so, what was the outcome? Do libertarians see their ideology as an attainable goal rather than a form of utopianism?

In a libertarian society, what would prevent the wealth from concentrating in the hands of a few elites while the rest of the population becomes dirt poor (see feudalism)?

Assuming that a minimal libertarian government exists, what would prevent this government from becoming corrupted? I don't think I'm stepping out on a limb by saying that our current government is playing favorites with those who have the most cash (see campaign finance, lobbies, pork barrel, etc.). What would stop a libertarian government from also favoring large corporations and stifling free market competition?

Since libertarians do favor some form of government (however small) does this mean that libertarians also support taxation? If so, is taxation voluntary? If not, who pays for the government?

What is the goal of libertarianism? I have always thought the goal of modern political thought is the maximization of well-being throughout all walks of life. Do libertarians claim to be utilitarian as well? Or do they prefer a more Darwinistic society where the cunning and competitive prosper at the expense of the less able-bodied.

Supposing that a libertarian society could work, shouldn't a good libertarian take an all-or-nothing approach to policy? In other words, could partial libertarianism do more harm than good? For example, suppose that the government favoritism eschewed by libertarians has created a large and powerful monopoly. Wouldn't the removal of government regulation allow this corporation to grow even stronger, thus stifling competition even further? Is libertarianism viable only if you start from scratch?

And finally, is John Stossel a libertarian?

- JB

[2sense]

As it happens we are discussing Libertarianism right now. It is in the "The US is already a socialist society" thread.

Come on over.

[Smartass]

junebeetle:

Don't have good, pat answers for your questions. Plus, I have no idea who John Stossel is (been out of the country too long?).

I can point you to some places that might help you, though:

Libertarian Party Official Website (http://www.lp.org/)

Official Site of Harry Browne Presidential Campaign (http://www.harrybrowne2000.org/)

Reason Magazine (Free Minds, Free Markets) (http://www.reason.com/)

If you want more theoretical-type stuff, check with Libertarian, who you can probly find on the Socialism thread 2sense mentioned.

Hope this helps.

-VM

[Liberal]

junebeetle

Note: the following are solely my opinions.

Has a libertarian society ever existed in history?

Not really.

If so, what was the outcome?

Op. cit.

Do libertarians see their ideology as an attainable goal rather than a form of utopianism?

Assuming you mean "utopianism" in the modern sense, there is hardly anything utopian about hard work and struggle. But if you mean "utopianism" in the classical sense, then of course it is utopian until it manifests into existence.

If you are asking whether libertarianism is practical, then my answer would be that what is practical depends entirely on what you are practicing. If you are practicing social engineering or some other tyranny, then libertarian principles are highly impractical. But if you are practicing voluntary relations among free people, then libertarian principles are the only practical ones there are.

In a libertarian society, what would prevent the wealth from concentrating in the hands of a few elites while the rest of the population becomes dirt poor (see feudalism)?

Nothing other than people's common sense.

In a free-market, tempered by noncoercion, you would likely be "dirt poot" if you are stupid, incompetent, lazy, ignorant, foolish, or any number of other causes. But these causes would not include someone taking your property away from you. Contrast this with modern American society, in which its politicians and bureaucrats can take your property away from you by fiat law (see Fabianism).

Assuming that a minimal libertarian government exists, what would prevent this government from becoming corrupted?

Nothing besides an enlightened and armed citizenry.

I don't think I'm stepping out on a limb by saying that our current government is playing favorites with those who have the most cash (see campaign finance, lobbies, pork barrel, etc.). A What would stop a libertarian government from also favoring large corporations B and stifling free market competition?

A Favoring them with what? No laws can exist that abridge the rights of any citizen. Contrast this with modern American society, wherein Mr. Tycoon can bribe Senator Fatcat to pass special legislation that will favor his company against competitors.

B Contradictions do not exist. A libertarian government, by definition, does not stifle free market competition. If you are in fact asking what is to stop the libertarian government from losing its libertarianism, the answer is previously cited.

Since libertarians do favor some form of government (however small) does this mean that libertarians also support taxation?

If by taxation you mean seizing the property of peaceful honest people by force or threat of force, the answer is no.

If so, is taxation voluntary?

In a libertarian society, by definition, all praxes are voluntary.

If not, who pays for the government?

Those who consent to be governed.

That is like asking who pays for Wal-Mart, and the answer is those who choose to shop there. As it is, when you go to Wal-Mart, you are greeted at the door by representatives of the company, you make your selections, you pay at the register, and you leave. Contrast this with being taken to Wal-Mart against your will, being greeted at the door by armed thugs who take whatever they want from you, and give you whatever, if anything, they please, and then send you on your way.

What is the goal of libertarianism?

A context of peace and honesty.

Do libertarians claim to be utilitarian as well?

Libertarianism would be very useful to people who are peaceful and honest, but of little use to people who are coercive and untrustworthy.

Or do they prefer a more Darwinistic society where the cunning and competitive prosper at the expense of the less able-bodied[?]

Neither have we stopped beating our wives.

Those who prosper in a libertarian context are those who can bring their dreams to fruition peacefully and honestly, be they able-bodied or in wheel-chairs.

Supposing that a libertarian society could work, shouldn't a good libertarian take an all-or-nothing approach to policy?

Yes.

In other words, could partial libertarianism do more harm than good?

Yes, just as partial pregnancy might have unpredictable results.

For example, suppose that the government favoritism eschewed by libertarians has created a large and powerful monopoly. Wouldn't the removal of government regulation allow this corporation to grow even stronger, thus stifling competition even further?

A mixed metaphor.

In a libertarian society, monopolies exist only when everybody willfully and voluntarily favors the monopoly with patronage. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a monopoly except in a market that is not free. In a free-market, on the other hand, a monopoly is the result of a unanimous decision by the populace.

Is libertarianism viable only if you start from scratch?

I think so, yes.

"Every revolution evaporates, and leaves behind the slime of a new bureaucracy." — Franz Kafka

And finally, is John Stossel a libertarian?

Yes.

---

The best on-line resource for those interested in libertarianism is at Free Market (http://www.free-market.net).

Thank you for your questions.

[Gilligan]

Now can we hear the overhead projector story?

[Smartass]

Libertarian:

I like the Wal-Mart analogy. Except for the part about the aremed thugs, it kind of reminds me of my Wal-Mart experiences in northern Germany.

-VM

[sqweels]

How does a libertarian society deal with threats to the environment? By denying they exist?

[waterj2]

Environmental issues? Those would be dealt with (to the extent they need to be) with property rights and lawsuits. If someone pollutes your property, you can sue them. If someone makes the air you breathe dangerous to you, you can sue them. While there are fewer built-in protections in this approach, there are also fewer politicians to be bribed by corrupt businesses.

[waterj2]

Environmental issues? Those would be dealt with (to the extent they need to be) with property rights and lawsuits. If someone pollutes your property, you can sue them. If someone makes the air you breathe dangerous to you, you can sue them. While there are fewer built-in protections in this approach, there are also fewer politicians to be bribed by corrupt businesses.

[sqweels]

That's preposterous, waterj2. Not all envronmental damage manifests itself as direct harm to one individual or party at the hands of another clearly identifiable party. What about endangered species? What about long-term deteriorations such as global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain? I take a pretty dim view of legislation-by-lawsuit, but in a libertarian society, how would the courts even operate?

[Liberal]

sqweels

How does a libertarian society deal with threats to the environment?

In my opinion, pollution, which is vandalism, is a criminal offense. Libertarianly speaking, crime is the abridgement of rights.

By denying they exist?

Gratuitous.

[sqweels]

In my opinion, pollution, which is vandalism, is a criminal offense. Libertarianly speaking, crime is the abridgement of rights.

So like, we'd need regulations to prevent that, and a bureaucratic system for investigating violations and assigning responsibility as well as identifying new threats and devising new regulations to counter them.

Besides, aren't we all vandalizing a little bit by driving our cars etc.?

[junebeetle]

Now can we hear the overhead projector story?


Sure.

It wasn't exactly an overhead projector --- it was one of those devices that allows you to project a computer image onto a big screen. Picture an object about the size of a small Igloo cooler, weighing about 50 pounds. At the time of the "incident", said libertarian professor was demonstrating the Towers of Hanoi problem with a nifty graphics presentation from his laptop. In case you aren't familiar with the Towers of Hanoi, it's a staple of first year computer science courses --- an ancient puzzle involving pegs and disks which can be solved easily using a recursive algorithm.

Anyway, the professor needed to balance the projector on top of a stand in the front row in order to get a good image on screen. The stand was one of those aluminum wheeled things from the AV department, about five feet tall --- the kind used to carry television sets and VCRs between classrooms. Since the cable connecting the laptop to the projector was short, The professor had to pull up a desk right next to the projector in order to give his presentation.

Well, right in the middle of the lecture, he accidently bumped the stand with his arm, knocking this huge 50-pound projector onto one of the students in the front row. Crunch! I was sitting near the back of the classroom so I couldn't see exactly what happened next. I heard somebody shout "Oh my God! Look at all the blood!". Luckily, a good Samaritan donated his T-shirt to help stop the bleeding. The classroom was strangely silent for about 15 minutes until the paramedics arrived and took the projector victim to the hospital. The weirdest thing was how the professor continued the lecture after paramedics left as if nothing had happened! He didn't even look phased. Of course, we had to use our imaginations about the Towers of Hanoi, since the projector was permanently out of service.

It turns out that the student was pretty lucky. The projector had fallen on his leg and glanced off without breaking it --- but it left a gash that bled profusely and required eleven stitches. He come to class the very next day, wearing a huge bandage over his leg. As far as I know, there were no lawsuits --- so maybe the professor was the lucky one.

- JB

[Liberal]

sqweels

So like, we'd need regulations to prevent that, and a bureaucratic system for investigating violations and assigning responsibility as well as identifying new threats and devising new regulations to counter them.

Nonsense.

Besides, aren't we all vandalizing a little bit by driving our cars etc.?

Oh, yes indeed.

The modern American society is like that. It's okay to vandalize a little bit, to usurp a few rights, to oppress the minority for the sake of the majority. I refer you to F. A. Hayek's Theory of Spontaneous Order, developed in The Road to Serfdom (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226320618/ref=sim_books/103-8230665-4365408), and other books, for a look at how society might have developed differently in a noncoercive context.

Libertarianly speaking, nothing, not even expedience, gives you license to abridge the rights of others. In a Fabianist economy, the foul stench from pollutants is tolerated for the sake of the tax base. In a noncoercive free-market, if people object to the pollution of their land, then entrepreneurs have incentive to produce pollutionless transporation.

[tracer]

What about defense? What keeps a big bunch of armed thugs (such as, say, a foreign country that did not practice Libertarianism[TM]) from marching onto your real estate and taking over? Assuming no one individual is capable of holding off a whole gang, the people in your neighborhood (and maybe other neighborhoods) would have to agree to band together in case a bunch of thugs attacked one of them. How is this stand-by defensive force coordinated? Who pays for the heavy armaments (tanks, fighter planes, nuclear ordnance) that no one of them, individually, is willing or able to buy?

[junebeetle]

Plus, I have no idea who John Stossel is (been out of the country too long?).


Stossel is a reporter for ABC's 20/20. His "Give Me a Break" segment purports to expose wastefulness
and hypocrisy in America, although he is often criticized for playing fast and loose with the facts (FAIR has a web site (http://www.fair.org/media-outlets/stossel.html) devoted to him).

- JB

[andros]

Hey, Lib . . . back to fielding the Libertarianism questions again, I see. :D

One clarification, if you would: You said

In a noncoercive free-market, if people object to the pollution of their land, then entrepreneurs have incentive to produce pollutionless transporation.

That's if enough people object, right? If only a small percentage of the population has asthma, for example, there will be little incentive for low-emissions vehicles, right?

I'm missing something. In what way is this not a tyranny of the majority?

[junebeetle]

What about defense? What keeps a big bunch of armed thugs (such as, say, a foreign country that did not practice Libertarianism[TM]) from marching onto your real estate and taking over?


It is my understanding that in order for a libertarian nation to succeed, all other nations must be libertarian as well. Hence the question: Do libertarians actually believe that libertarianism is an achievable goal rather than wishful thinking? A genuine libertarian society seems nearly impossible to implement. In which case, what is the point of advocating libertarian policy if the end results can never be attained?

- JB

[pldennison]

tracer, can I assume that you would be willing to contribute some portion of your income/resources for military and police protection? After all, it would take an abominably stupid person to leave his property and possesssions unprotected.

Given that, can we also assume your neighbors aren't abominably stupid? They want their stuff protected too, right? Plus, if you get "invaded," they're more likely to be "invaded."

Now, we have you and all of your neighbors willing to contribute some part of your resources/income to your protection. In which case I'm sure there would be entrepreneurs capable of building, equipping and maintaining security forces for protection from threats within and without who would be happy to take that money. You could choose to take utilize that service, or not.

[tracer]

Yes, me and a few of my neighbors could pool our resources to buy the heavy equipment necessary to protect ourselves from small gangs of outside invaders. We could also take turns standing watch to spot approaching invaders before they arrive. But the thing about successful gangs of thugs is, they tend to attract new members. A small gang can grow to be a big gang rather quickly, when others who are not members of the gang perceive a potential economic or safety advantage to being in the gang.

To defend yourself against a big gang, you need a big band of defenders. And a lot of hardware. You and your neighborhood friends alone will not be enough to thwart them. You have to join forces with other neighborhoods for large-scale mutual protection. But with such a large group, you can bet your last privately-minted silver dollar that not everybody is going to know everybody else, and that not everybody knows who has contracted with whom to provide which defensive goods and services when. And when this happens, some people are going to want to cheat. Why should you waste one evening a month scouting for enemy thugs if you can pretend it's not your turn? Why should you contribute to the common kitty for buying an F-22 fighter if no one knows whether you've contributed or not? And if you choose not to participate in this defense program, you'll STILL get a good deal of protection out of it if your house is nestled safely inside your multi-neighborhood defense network. (If the enemy's charging in, they're not going to go threading through the streets looking for houses that aren't participating in mutual-defense pacts, and the multi-neighborhood defense network won't assume they're going to.)

You would need general participation. You would need something like tax collection and mandatory military service. In short, you would need something like ... a government!

[Gaudere]

Posting for MGibson, whose post wound up in the wrong place:

MGibson
Member
Registered: Apr 2000
Posts: 43

There seems to be a common misconception that Libertarians don't like government or believe they should be involved in our lives at all. It is true that they believe government involvement should be minimal but certainly it should be there.

To start with there's a misconception that Libertarian ideas regarding taxes makes it impossible for the government to provide for the common defense. (Such as a military.) Libertarians oppose the income tax and perhaps a few others that I'm not aware of. There are many other taxes they do not oppose.

I'm not really sure what their stance on the environment is. However I don't think it would violate Libertarian ideology to recognize that pollution can be a rights violation and as such take actions to prevent or curtail it. This doesn't have to entail a monster organization like the EPA to be effective.

With regard to businesses setting up monopolies. Most of the so called Robber Barons did so with the help of various politicans they bribed. If the power of politicans to interfere in business was limited so to would the incentive to bribe them. You wouldn't get rid of all corruption but you'd certainly get rid of some.

Marc

[SingleDad]

Remember, you're only getting the proponents' point of view in this thread. Check out The U.S. is already a Socialist society! (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=24443) for some other perspectives.

[junebeetle]

Thanks, I will check it out.

(...several hours later)

What a fascinating and complex debate! I guess I am too humbled (and tired) to add much of value.

Out of curiosity, what do libertarians believe that the wealth distribution in a true libertarian society would look like? Since libertarians are obviously not concerned with the equitable distribution of wealth, I imagine that they are willing to concede that the ideal libertarian society would contain much more economic stratification than, say, the ideal social democratic society.

- JB

[Liberal]

tracer

What about defense?

Ah, what about defense? As it happens, defense and dispute arbitration are the sole functions of a libertarian government. According to Federal Office of Management and Budget, the Fiscal Year 2001 budget for national defense (http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=6688231831+21+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve) allocates a little more than $306 billion to "defend the United States, its citizens, its allies, and to protect and advance American interests around the world".

Even with the incredible bloat and wastefulness of that budget, even with the unnecessary expense of maintaining a military presence in more than 100 (more than 100!) of the nations on earth, even with the abberational advancement of "American interests around the world" — even with all that, the cost for maintaining the U.S. military is about $1,000 per person per year.

If world-wide occupying forces are withdrawn, if the military bureaucracy is trimmed to lean, and if the focus of the miliary is simply to defend U.S. citizens, the cost per person drops to an even smaller figure.

This cost per year, to defend your rights, will be what you pay when you consent to be governed. Being governed isn't supposed to mean being parented. Being governed is supposed to mean having your rights protected.

"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all." — Thomas Jefferson

[Liberal]

andros

Hey, Lib . . . back to fielding the Libertarianism questions again, I see.

It is my happy lot in life.

That's if enough people object, right? If only a small percentage of the population has asthma, for example, there will be little incentive for low-emissions vehicles, right? I'm missing something. In what way is this not a tyranny of the majority?

I don't think it's a matter that you're missing something; rather, I think it's a matter that you're adding something, based simply on your familiarity with majoritarianism.

You assume, for example, that "only a small percentage of the population" has no rights, or else that their rights might conflict with those of the rest of the population. "Conflicting rights" is a notion pertinent to models wherein rights are obfuscatory or poorly defined.

In Libertaria, every single solitary individual has the same right, namely, the right to be free from the coercion and fraud of others. Therefore, if you, and only you, as an individual, object to the pollution of your land, then no one — not your neighbors, not the majority, not the government, not everybody on earth — may infringe your right to be left in peace.

Remember, libertarianism is based on principle, not expedience. "The security of his rights inconveniences me" is not a legitimate charge against a man in Libertaria.

[Liberal]

junebeetle

It is my understanding that in order for a libertarian nation to succeed, all other nations must be libertarian as well.

You are mistaken.

A libertarian government is not concerned with other nations or their affairs; its sole concern is the security of the rights of its own — and only its own — citizens. Those rights are secured from any coercion source, foreign or domestic. A libertarian government does not conduct diplomacy, for example. Its citizens are free to trade with anyone who will trade with them, and free to conduct their own diplomacy.

A libertarian government does not police the world, nor does it nanny its citizens.

[Liberal]

Single Dad

Check out The U.S. is already a Socialist society! for some other perspectives.

I have seen no arguments there against libertarianism. I have seen arguments against anarchism, minarchism, and disestablishmentarianism, but where are the arguments against the Noncoercion Principle?

Perhaps in this thread, you could lay out your opposition to the notion that peaceful honest people ought to be free to pursue their own happiness in their own way.

[pldennison]

Since libertarians are obviously not concerned with the equitable distribution of wealth, I imagine that they are willing to concede that the ideal libertarian society would contain much more economic stratification than, say, the ideal social democratic society.

I bet that your idea of "equitable" will differ considerably from that of the next twenty people you meet this morning. I also bet that, even among the most liberal here on the SDMB, few to none advocate all persons having the same amount of wealth, all the time.

Also, doesn't the United States have the largest gap between the wealthiest and the poorest among the Western democracies?

[junebeetle]

I bet that your idea of "equitable" will differ considerably from that of the next twenty people you meet this morning. I also bet that, even among the most liberal here on the SDMB, few to none advocate all persons having the same amount of wealth, all the time.


By "equitable" I don't mean equal. I agree that it is a foolish idea for a government to try to distribute wealth evenly among all citizens. But one of the factors I take into consideration when evaluating the economic health of a nation is the distribution of wealth. If 99% of the population is struggling to put food on the table while 1% is living in castles, I would consider that a bad economy. If 10% of the population is poor, 80% is middle class, and another 10% is rich, I would consider that a healthy economy.

I am not necessarily implying that a government should take an active role in redistributing the money, although I don't see why it cannot be done to a reasonable extent. I would imagine that a good economy would naturally produce the healthy results which I have described. My question still stands: How do you, as a libertarian, believe that the wealth would become distributed in a libertarian economy?

- JB

[andros]

Therefore, if you, and only you, as an individual, object to the pollution of your land, then no one — not your neighbors, not the majority, not the government, not everybody on earth — may infringe your right to be left in peace.

Hmmm. So if I were a citizen of Libertaria, and I opposed the pollution of my air by internal combustion engines, everyone else has to stop using them?

[Gilligan]

Some of the questions from the OP and later indicate a preumption that all libertarians have the same view on everything. Things like "what do libertarians say about environmental issues?" Individual libertarians answer these questions in a variety of ways, often conflicting with each other. Outside of party politics, there isn't a "platform" for the philosophy in general. Either Phil or Lib (sorry, can't remember which to give proper credit) once said it as "We are not Borg." I wanted to point this out, lest interested readers and critics find some particular point objectionable, and assume that this means the whole philosophy is flawed. If you're a conservative, I imagine you wouldn't want to be judged on the basis of Jesse Helms' views. Keep it in mind to allow libertarianism the same breadth of viewpoints as you would expect for your own political label.

[Derleth]

I have a few possible replies:

1. You're just as free to move.
-Not a serious proposal. I want to wake you up.

2. You are free to invest in electric engines.
-Not bad if you don't mind the wait, but you doubtless want a more immediate solution.

3. You are free to try and sue the people who drive cars.
-Not practical, but since when has that stopped people.

4. You can count on your fellow man to be just as tiffed about that reek in the air and join them in limiting the use of autos in their community.
-Perhaps not a legalistic solution, and one that would require truly amazing coordination among various houses, but the utility of such solutions is what every voting society is based upon. Perhaps you could set up a community where autos are banned, and then rent and sell things like bikes and electric carts. I think this is the best solution based upon the premise that you're being left alone by Big Brother.

[waterj2]

OK, you want to use cars as an example?

If cars are making the air near you bad, you could sue the guy who built the road so damn close to your property. Unless you move there afterwards. But, since the roads are privately built and run in a libertarian society, the people building them must take steps to ensure that the roads are not layed out to unreasonably cause health problems for the people nearby.

The road builder could then charge lower tolls for electric cars, thus encouraging people to obtain them. Is this the most effective solution to the polution problem (to the extent that it is a problem)? Probably not. But it is more just than the current system, is free of political considerations, and quite likely works just as well.

[Danielinthewolvesden]

But in the USA we have tacitly given our "consent to be governed". The USA has open borders, you can leave any day you want. I am not saying "love it or leave it", but I am saying "work within the syatem, or leave or shut up". (aka "lead, follow or get out of the way") :D


Oh, and you forgot, when we get alibertarian government we will also have; an end to crime, world peace, immortality, and all the ice cream we can eat.

Actually the early pre constitution days of the USA were pretty libertarian. It didn't work, and that is because libertarianism depends on people not acting like people. It is human nature to try to get awy without doing your share.

[waterj2]

I just posted in the thread mentioned by SingleDad (The US is already a Socialist society!) my explanation of why the "open borders" argument is not non-coerced consent.

As far as I know, all the libertarians on this message board are working within the system. We just think that the system should be improved in some ways. Unless you don't consider voting for Libertarian candidates and arguing in favor of libertarianism to be consistent with the principles upon which our country was founded.

[Liberal]

andros

Hmmm. So if I were a citizen of Libertaria, and I opposed the pollution of my air by internal combustion engines, everyone else has to stop using them?

Of course you have the right to make decisions with respect to your property. Do you prefer that, say, I make those decisions on your behalf? Or do you prefer maybe that a congress of wealthy lawyers decide how much your air may be polluted?

In a noncoercive free-market, like Libertaria, entrepreneurs are licking their chops, waiting for exactly the opportunity you describe, to launch research and development for a pollutionless mode of transporation, due to the motivation of necessity. Contrast this with a Fabianist nation-state, wherein the interests of Big Oil, Inc. are protected against your pesky druthers, and solar power technology drags on at a medieval pace.

[Liberal]

Danielinthewolvesden

The USA has open borders, you can leave any day you want.

This implies that "The USA" owns the land you occupy, and that you are merely squatting. If you are the owner, why shouldn't it leave?

Suppose I were a visitor in your home, and you announced that you found me obnoxious and intolerable. What if my response to you were, "Well, you can leave anytime you want."?

[Liberal]

Danielinthewolvesden

Actually the early pre constitution days of the USA were pretty libertarian.

They were? Libertarianism is the provision of a peaceful honest social context by a government that secures the rights of each of its citizens. Which government was doing this?

It didn't work, and that is because libertarianism depends on people not acting like people.

Arguments about anarchy, which you have confused with libertarianism, are ongoing in another thread.

It is human nature to try to get [away] without doing your share.

I suppose that means my father, who instilled his principles into me, was not humanly natured. Do not confuse Pavlovian conditioning by nanny government with the intrinsic nature of man.

Besides, you owe nothing to me or anyone else, except for respecting our rights. Your "share" is nothing more than providing for you and your family.

[earendel1]

Of course you have the right to make decisions with respect to your property. Do you prefer that, say, I make those decisions on your behalf? Or do you prefer maybe that a congress of wealthy lawyers decide how much your air may be polluted?

But if I make the decision for my property, what difference does that make if my neighbors decide differently? In the case of automotive pollution, most of it travels through the air. If I "make [a] decision[] with respect to [my] property" that I don't want that smog, how can I prevent it other than building a barrier to keep all of the polluted air out? Surely you aren't saying that "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many", are you?


In a noncoercive free-market, like Libertaria, entrepreneurs are licking their chops, waiting for exactly the opportunity you describe, to launch research and development for a pollutionless mode of transporation, due to the motivation of necessity. Contrast this with a Fabianist nation-state, wherein the interests of Big Oil, Inc. are protected against your pesky druthers, and solar power technology drags on at a medieval pace.
[/B]

Those entrepreneurs aren't going to be beating a path to my door if I'm the only person who wants a non-polluting automobile.

[zero]

Since this seems like the Libertarian Q&A forum, I'll post some of my questions as well.

1. After reading the other libertarian thread and reflecting on what I learned about libertarianism from undergrad econ classes, I have become confused about the role of education in a libertarian system. For the system to work properly, it seems that every citizen should have significant knowledge about civics and economics. Also, it seems that they should also have significant knowledge about prerequisite subjects like mathematics, history, reading and writing, to name a few. That's assuming that people are born tabula rasa. So, who pays for this education? Obviously if the market provides the education, the quality would be stratified by price. This suggests a loophole where education providers could oppress the consumers by providing erroneous information. In my mind, the market wouldn't be able to compensate for this because the consumers would have already had misinformation about how the market works.

2. As a similar question to #1, in a Libertarian system who provides information on the market conditions, and who pays for it? For the system to work correctly it seems to me that every citizen would need access to all information. That way producers could make informed decisions about where to redirect their capital, and consumers could make informed decisions about which product would satisfy them most. On the one hand I can see how a producer would want to keep certain information secret, and that seems to suggest that individuals would pay for it. Likewise, the individuals would reap the rewards of the research. But, on the other hand, I can see where major inefficiencies would occur when multiple people do the same research. Would any of this information be copyrightable? If so, how could a consumer make an informed decision without the access to information that a producer had copyrighted? Also, would peoples’ income information become public domain? If not, how would the market adjust without this information (i.e. a person who finds a lucrative market niche could either hide or distort their income information thereby reducing potential for others to enter into that niche)?

3. In a Libertarian society why wouldn’t your capital be redistributed evenly upon your death? You have no need for it anymore, and passing that wealth on to your children (or even giving it away) seems like an injustice to all other citizens. Inheritance seems like a redistribution that would artificially distort the market, thereby hurting everyone.

[Liberal]

earendel1

But if I make the decision for my property, what difference does that make if my neighbors decide differently?

That depends on how (or whether) your rights are secured. The same is true of your neighbors. In Libertaria, you do not make decisions with respect to their property; neither do they make decisions with respect to yours.

I can see where a person, used to thinking of rights as a gift bestowed by his chief magistrate, or as a least common denominator of the demands of the majority, might introduce unnecessary entities into his consideration of his own rights versus the rights of others. In a proper model, rights do not conflict.

In the case of automotive pollution, most of it travels through the air. If I "make [a] decision[] with respect to [my] property" that I don't want that smog, how can I prevent it other than building a barrier to keep all of the polluted air out?

Again, that depends on how your rights are secured. If you are securing your own (that is, you are an anarchist) then what you do will be determined by your own wits and ethics. If, on the other hand, you have hired a libertarian government to secure your rights, then the onus is upon it to use whatever force necessary to stop your property from being polluted.

Surely you aren't saying that "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many", are you?

I have said nothing about "needs".

Those entrepreneurs aren't going to be beating a path to my door if I'm the only person who wants a non-polluting automobile.

I'm afraid you still don't "get it". Perhaps you, like me, appreciate a more abstract model.

Given a set {S}, wherein the attributes of each element of the set are identical, a disequilibrium in the set is impossible. Thus, if the elements of {S} are P1, P2, P3 ... Pn, and the attributes of each element are contained in the set {R}, then the attributes of any arbitrary P are the same. In this case, S is the society; P is a person; and R is the set of natural rights.

For those who appreciate a less abstract model, the above means that if even one individual's rights are abridged by any praxis, then that praxis must cease. Period. Else, a disequilibrium is introduced to the set, and {R} is no longer identical for each element. In other words, your decision that your peacefully and honestly acquired land may not be polluted (just like your decision that your life may not be ended), limits the license that others may bear. That is, no one may pollute your land with a car. Thus, the necessity of pollutionless transportation is universal.

It is no different than if you decided you don't want to be pissed on within a society where urinating upon one another has become a popular cultural activity. Your decision to be urine free, means that no one may piss on you.

Now, that is your right. To breathe clean air. To live without being urinated on. When you decide how you will secure your rights is when you might give consideration to consenting to be governed by an entity that will indeed secure them. Or not.

Does that help?

[Liberal]

zero

"Lord, my load is heavy." — Lily Tomlin

After reading the other libertarian thread and reflecting on what I learned about libertarianism from undergrad econ classes...

[bracing...]

...I have become confused about the role of education in a libertarian system.

Were there a "libertarian system", the role of education within its context would be subjectively determined by each of its volunteers, but libertarianism is not a "system" in the sense that it is a form of government. Libertarianism is a principle — a context, a philosophy — within which any arbitrary system may operate. Thus, a collective within a libertarian context can be anything from a monarchy to a democracy, so long as all are volunteers.

For the system to work properly, it seems that every citizen should have significant knowledge about civics and economics. Also, it seems that they should also have significant knowledge about prerequisite subjects like mathematics, history, reading and writing, to name a few.

Uh oh. Looks like you might be proceeding to draw conclusions from false premises...

That's assuming that people are born tabula rasa.

Does that mean "with a clean slate"?

So, who pays for this education?

Whoever buys it.

Obviously if the market provides the education, the quality would be stratified by price.

In most cases, probably. Although the argument can be made that the quality of education in a one room schoolhouse in rural Iowa might be superior to the quality of education in a large, inner-city schoolplex. It depends on what you mean by "education": learning to think, learning to recite factoids, learning to survive in the hood, etc.

This suggests a loophole where education providers could oppress the consumers by providing erroneous information.

Fraud is a crime in Libertaria.

In my mind, the market wouldn't be able to compensate for this because the consumers would have already had misinformation about how the market works.

I'm sorry, but the point of your question has escaped me completely. I have no idea what you are asking, or what you are talking about.

As a similar question to #1, in a Libertarian system who provides information on the market conditions, and who pays for it?

Well, as a similar answer, whoever acquires something will typically pay for it, providing other arrangements have not been made.

For the system to work correctly it seems to me that every citizen would need access to all information.

What system are you talking about? Republicanism? Democracy? Dictatorship?

That way producers could make informed decisions about where to redirect their capital, and consumers could make informed decisions about which product would satisfy them most.

Libertarianly speaking, you have the right to make decisions with respect to your property, but no intrinsic right to make informed ones. A wise man will indeed make informed decisions, but he must seek out the information himself. So long as he is peaceful and honest, no one owes him anything other than to let him pursue his own happiness in his own way.

On the one hand I can see how a producer would want to keep certain information secret, and that seems to suggest that individuals would pay for it. Likewise, the individuals would reap the rewards of the research. But, on the other hand, I can see where major inefficiencies would occur when multiple people do the same research. Would any of this information be copyrightable?

Again, you are speaking way over my head, but you seem to be asking about libertarian copyright interpretation, and in that regard, it is no different than any other libertarian rights interpretion. Property, in Libertaria, contextualizes rights.

Also, would peoples’ income information become public domain?

[scratching head...]

Huh? There is no such thing as "public property" or "public domain" in Libertaria.

If not, how would the market adjust without this information (i.e. a person who finds a lucrative market niche could either hide or distort their income information thereby reducing potential for others to enter into that niche)?

[taking an Excedrin tablet...]

Well, assuming you mean a noncoercive free-market, it adjusts as a result of billions and trillions of miniscule individual market praxes.

I refer you to Human Action (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0930073185/o/qid=959268272/sr=8-1/ref=aps_sr_b_1_1/103-8230665-4365408) by Ludwig von Mises. Please return to this discussion after having read that work, and we can continue.

Or perhaps, start over.

In a Libertarian society why wouldn’t your capital be redistributed evenly upon your death?

Why on earth would it? No one has the right to distribute or redistribute your property, other than you or an agent whom you hire.

You have no need for it anymore,...

Irrelevant.

...and passing that wealth on to your children (or even giving it away) seems like an injustice to all other citizens.

That presumes the entitlement of "all other citizens" to your property. How in the world did you tie such a notion to libertarianism?

Inheritance seems like a redistribution that would artificially distort the market, thereby hurting everyone.

Edlyn, where are you? I could use a good roll in the hay right now.

[Smartass]

zero:

I think you're causing Lib some pain. I'll try to clarify some of the stuff you asked, in case Libertarian's answers seem confusing.

For the system to work properly, it seems that every citizen should have significant knowledge about civics and economics.

You've been in the Socialism thread, haven't you? In our desire to get to "core" issues over there, we sometimes skip important links. If you want to argue libertarian theory with SingleDad, you best know a little about these things (only to run up against the brick wall of picmr's knowledge), but just living in a libertarian society does not require this. I'll give a little background:

In a libertarian society, goods would tend to be distributed by the market. Libertarians are very big on the value of the "free market". Briefly, in a free market, every participant sells or doesn't sell, buys or doesn't buy as he wishes, and his finances will allow. If I want to sell something, I can set any price I like. However, the price I set is going to affect your willingness to buy. Ignoring elasticity for a moment, if my price is low I will usually sell more than if my price were high. In a free market, price is a primary means of information transfer between and among buyers and sellers.

Since most everyone in the Socialism thread agrees that free markets result in the most efficient use of resources, we tend to take markets and their works as somewhat of a given.

in a Libertarian system who provides information on the market conditions, and who pays for it?

In general, markets are self-regulating. If you want to know the "condition" of the gas market, you can look at the price on the pump at the gas station(s). If you are interested in the "economy as a whole", you'll have to collect the prices of a lot of different things. If you want someone to collect this information for you, they will probably expect payment.

a person who finds a lucrative market niche could either hide or distort their income information thereby reducing potential for others to enter into that niche

I do not need to know your income to know whether I want to enter a market. Let's say you make excellent pizzas and sell them from a pizza store. As it turns out, I also make excellent pizzas. I notice that you are charging $10.00 for a pizza. I can make one of my pizzas for $3.00. That means if I enter the market, I can set a price lower than yours and still make a good profit, because of my efficiency. It may be that you are making more or less off your pizzas, depending on how efficient you are.

In a Libertarian society why wouldn’t your capital be redistributed evenly upon your death? You have no need for it anymore, and passing that wealth on to your children (or even giving it away) seems like an injustice to all other citizens. Inheritance seems like a redistribution that would artificially distort the market, thereby hurting everyone.

Inheritance is not a distribution. If I sign a contract saying thay you are to receive my property upon my death, I am doing with my property as I see fit. If I bury my money in my yard, I am doing with my property as I see fit. If you take my property and give it to "society" (whoever that is), then you are stealing from me, which is a violation of my rights. And "society" is taking possession of property in a way that supercedes the market, thus distorting its ability to self-regulate.

I think you may be picturing a market as something different from what it is. A market exists any time people trade items in exchange for other items. To a libertarian, a free market is one in which all transactions are consensual, contracts are enforced, and no one is allowed to coerce anyone else. Because people naturally strive to, among other things, maximize the utility of their resources, markets work very well to ensure that resources are allocated to the places where they are most valued. Over time, markets tend to maximize the efficiency of inputs.

Maybe this will help you to frame questions in such a way that we can give you more satisfying answers.

-VM

[zero]

After reading through your comments a few times, I am still unsure if you answered satisfactorily. Either way, I'll read your reference and see if that provides more information. Just a few more questions before I read though…

In regards to education, can I assume from your comments that you believe that people are born with innate information on how to behave in a market system? That is they don't need to be taught how to produce or consume because they naturally know how. If that is the case, then yes, I can see where provision of education is irrelevant. But, doesn't core economic theory assume that individuals behave rationally? If so, are you indirectly implying that individuals are born rational?

Also, as a libertarian, why would you provide free information like you do here? Aren't your opportunity costs high?

This question is for anyone. Is there any way to test Libertarian principles through a computer simulation?

[redtail23]

Just dropped in to look around...now I'm going to have to go read the other thread!

Not a Libertarian, myself, exactly. I tend to work better with practicalities than theories. Altho I do have a theory of government based on practicalism that I've been working up...oh, sorry, I'll save that for when I'm made Ruler of the Universe. :)

One such practical idea that that I found most wonderful:

An example of how a Libertarian government might choose to prevent water pollution - enact a law that requires all intake pipes to be downstream of the outflow pipes for the same entity. Since the factory (or whatever) needs clean (or cold or whatever) water for their own purposes, they will be required to clean up their own effluvia in order to obtain it.

Beauty! Minimal and yet effective - most practical. You'd probably have to get a bit more specific to make it really stick (such as maximum distances between pipes, something for agriculture, etc.), but the concept is lovely!

Read this in a Libertarian-themed science fiction novel whose title I cannot currently recall, authored by a man whose name escapes me at the moment (has a 'neil' in it somewhere though). He also wrote one called The Rainbow Cadenza, which is a much better book but less obviously Libertarian.

[zero]

Yes, I can understand your examples better.

Now, since you seem somewhat tolerable toward my ignorance, let me ask a few more questions.

Your pizza example is good at showing concept, but it seems to assume that at any given time an infinite amount of people are willing to enter into the pizza market. In reality is there really an infinite amount of resources available? There's definitely a limit on people.

If there were a limited amount of resources available, then wouldn't each producer’s profit margin be important for showing opportunity for others to enter the market?

It almost seems like in an ideal libertarian market each producer would have a profit margin of zero. But why would anyone produce anything if they know their future profit will disappear?

In your inheritance example it seems like it would be possible to set up a trust fund at death that buys a portion of land. In the agreement an agent is to manage the land, and take a base salary. His role would be to rent out the land, and use the net profit to purchase more land. This algorithm would go on until a stop condition is met, either all land is purchased, or no one wants to sell their land. In the end, who owns the land?

[Liberal]

Smartass

Thank you.

zero

After reading through your comments a few times, I am still unsure if you answered satisfactorily.

Forgive me.

Either way, I'll read your reference and see if that provides more information.

Wonderful! You will be delighted at both its quality and quantity of information. Browse the reviews at the Amazon link I gave you when you buy.

In regards to education, can I assume from your comments that you believe that people are born with innate information on how to behave in a market system?

Well, no. What you can assume is that libertarianism defines proper ethical behavior as peacefulness and honesty, which can be applied to any market system, from capitalism to communism.

Libertarianism is neither a government type nor a market system, but merely a context (of volunteerism) for those.

But, doesn't core economic theory assume that individuals behave rationally?

Austrian economics (about which you will soon read in Human Action) defines an economic praxis as a free and volitional action or inaction by a person capable of giving meaningful consent. A mugging, for example, (or any other irrational action) is not an economic praxis.

Also, as a libertarian, why would you provide free information like you do here?

Because I derive great pleasure from it; that is to say, I want to.

Aren't your opportunity costs high?

Probably.

Is there any way to test Libertarian principles through a computer simulation?

Yes. In fact, I wish the game called "Civilization" had included an option to contextualize the various government forms it offers. Libertarianism would be one such context.

[Kimstu]

This seems as though it might be a better forum for newbie queries than the "Socialist US" thread. (So far I'm still completely convinced by SingleDad's arguments there, but maybe some of the Lib'ians can round out the picture for me.)

Freedom from pollution. Does Lib'ian [if this contraction is driving people nuts I will apologize and stop using it, it's just easier than typing out "Libertarian" over and over] doctrine really maintain that all individuals have the right to be free from contamination of their air, land, and water by others? As a non-car-owner and mass-transit advocate, it sounds great to me, but I gotta wonder: since almost all human activity results in some kind of pollution (even if it's just urine and excrement), exactly how much of what kinds of pollutants produced by other humans do we not have a right to be free from? And would a Lib'ian government really undertake to check the activities of anyone who was polluting in excess of that amount? In any reasonably large society, wouldn't that require a hell of a lot of law enforcement activity?

No public property. Is it true that Lib'ian principles exclude any kind of public land ownership or public prohibition of ownership? Would there be no city parks or national forests, etc.? If a Lib'ian society succeeded to a government like ours that does have public property, what would happen to that property? What about territorial waters? Would a Lib'ian government consider itself and its citizens bound by international agreements of non-sovereignty, e.g., those affecting Antarctica, international waters, and the moon?

Non-human rights? Are there any rights considered to apply to non-humans in a Lib'ian society? May you do anything you wish to an animal that belongs to you without falling afoul of anti-cruelty or environmental protection laws? What determines which animals belong to you? What about animals that migrate from one owner's property to another's? What about plants on your property that are needed to protect others' rights, e.g., could everyone deforest their land to below the minimum forestation levels needed to prevent degradation of the atmosphere?

Model communities? It seems to me that one of the best ways to convince people about the workability (if any) of Lib'ianism would be to demonstrate such a society actually working on a small scale, as nineteenth-century utopianists and twentieth-century communes endeavored to do with their "model communities." Are there presently any examples of local groups that have contracted to follow Lib'ian principles as far as possible? They couldn't avoid federal and state regulation, of course, but they could incorporate as a small municipality on Lib'ian principles and at least have a Lib'ian local government. Is this now happening anywhere, and if so, how's it going?

Thanks in advance for any responses,
Kimstu

[tradesilicon]

Libertarian,

Thank you for clearly explaining some of the principles of Libertarianism. I favor much of what I have read in this thread, and look forward to the day when this type of society can exist. I have no doubt that life would be better in this society in several respects.

I think it is extremely difficult to have a dialog with those who have been “brainwashed” by the state into thinking that life would stop, as we know it, if the Federal Government didn’t get yet another tax hike to support yet another program… Disgusting. The notion of “freedom” is something certain people interpret as the duty of the Government to grant us certain rights; but they completely lose the idea that Government should have no rights, people should have all rights, etc.

I admire the patience you, and several others here, display in your posts.

My personal philosophy is live and let live. Therefore, the “honest and peaceful” portion of the Libertarian philosophy really appeals to me. However, I am also the product of the nanny state, and my parents even more so (having grown up in the former Soviet Union), so I understand those who fear a truly free society, for they think it will be less safe and secure. I think Libertarians who are involved in politics will have to overcome this misconception in order to gain much broader support among the population of this country. Most (of this population) still don’t understand that you have the option to purchase any of those services from the Government, and even have your own welfare state in a Libertarian society. One poster here (Zero, was it you?) mentioned the need for education – there is another thread that covers this, but what sort of education do we have now with the Government providing it? Not too hot, ay?

Once again, thanks for an enlightening thread, I will follow it with interest.

Sili

[junebeetle]

tradesilicon:

...what sort of education do we have now with the Government providing it? Not too hot, ay?


Correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't the schools in the higher scoring nations with which we compare ourselves also publicly funded? Perhaps the problem with American education has little to do with whether or not it's paid for by government money. Maybe we should work on improving the system we've got ...

redtail23


An example of how a Libertarian government might choose to prevent water pollution - enact a law that requires all intake pipes to be downstream of the outflow pipes for the same entity.


That sounds like government regulation.

- JB

[Smartass]

redtail23:

Doesn't sound libertarian, but...interesting.


zero:

Before going any further, I want to underline what Lib said: Libertarianism, in and of itself, is not about government per se. So, there really is no "libertarian system". You would be better served to think of it as a "libertarian approach" or "libertarian philosophy". You can have a government which is libertarian if it adheres to libertarian principles, but libertarianism does not define a government.

It is for this reason that it makes sense to have a Libertarian Party in the U.S. which fields libertarian candidates. Libertarian candidates tend to be strong believers in the Constitution, which lays out a fairly libertarian system. The most common gripe you hear from libertarians is that the government is no longer adhering to the Constitution.

Just want you to keep this in mind. When you ask questions about specific instances, best I can do is provide you with my opinion or what free market theories would indicate. Now, back to theoretical stuff, which so far, to be honest, doesn't have a whole lot to do with libertarianism per se:

Your pizza example is good at showing concept, but it seems to assume that at any given time an infinite amount of people are willing to enter into the pizza market. In reality is there really an infinite amount of resources available?

Not so. Actually, the general theory is that the number of people willing to enter the pizza market is related to the perceived available profit. The amount of resources available is part of the calculation. If there is a lot of cheese available, then the price will tend to be low. The cheaper I can acquire cheese, the less it will cost me to produce pizzas and the lower price I need to charge in order to make a profit.

If there were a limited amount of resources available, then wouldn't each producer’s profit margin be important for showing opportunity for others to enter the market?

Not really. I know that you can are selling pizzas for $10.00. I know that I can sell pizzas for less and still make a profit. I don't really care whether you are making a profit or not. Don't assume that we all make our pizzas exactly the same way or have the same cost structures. Could be that I locate closer to the cheese factory and save money on transportation.

It almost seems like in an ideal libertarian market each producer would have a profit margin of zero. But why would anyone produce anything if they know their future profit will disappear?

Once again, you are assuming matching cost structures and a fairly static market. Also, you are leaving out technological advances. If we all make pizzas the same way, all have identical cost structures, and no innovations come along to alter the landscape, then theoretically people would enter and leave the market in such a way that eventually profits would reach zero. Also, you leave out personal taste--some people may prefer my pizzas, while others prefer yours. If the difference in price isn't too great, people will pay a little more for what they prefer. Otherwise, name brands would be pointless.

In your inheritance example it seems like it would be possible to set up a trust fund at death that buys a portion of land. In the agreement an agent is to manage the land, and take a base salary. His role would be to rent out the land, and use the net profit to purchase more land.

What a strange scheme. After I'm dead, I don't still own the land. It passes to whomever I've left it to. How can you work for me if I don't own the land? How can you be held to a contract with a dead person? What if you decided to give yourself a raise? Lib would have to check the details, but it seems to me that in this scenario the agent now owns the land. He can do with it what he will.

On a side note, imagine if you inherited some land and decided to try to execute this scheme, paying yourself a fixed salary. Do you think you would own a significant portion of the world anytime soon? Why isn't everyone else doing this, too?


Kimstu:

Naive questions, hell. You like the complicated ones. Allow me to point out that most of your questions are questions of policy. The Libertarian Party has a presidential candidate named Harry Browne, who I support. You can find his website here:

http://www.harrybrowne2000.org/

Any quotes from him that I use, come from there.

So far I'm still completely convinced by SingleDad's arguments there...

Which means that you, like him, are "90% libertarian"? Excellent. We're well on the way then.

Pollution
I'll leave it to Lib to give you the philosphical view. Here's a quote from Harry Browne:

Most environmental pollution to date has occurred because governments have allowed industries to pollute government property -- rivers, streams, lakes, roads, and lands. Most clear-cutting and strip-mining occur on government property because the offenders have no stake in the future value of the land. Pollution seldom occurs on private property, because property owners are concerned about the future value of their property. Obviously, pollution would diminish if more property were taken out of the hands of government and turned over to private owners for protection...

To say that government must force manufacturers to provide clean cars is to ignore history -- and to ignore the fact that companies have a strong motivation to provide what people want. Having politicians determine what's good for people is a recipe for exploiting people on behalf of those with the most political influence.

No public property
Is it true that Lib'ian principles exclude any kind of public land ownership or public prohibition of ownership? Would there be no city parks or national forests, etc.? If a Lib'ian society succeeded to a government like ours that does have public property, what would happen to that property?

This is correct. Governments are terribly inefficient and harmful in their use of resources, natural or otherwise. As to what would happen to it, that depends. Harry Browne would sell it all off and use the proceeds to pay off debts to citizens and enable the transition to a no-tax scheme.

Non-human rights:

Some of us believe that animals have inalienable rights. Some of us don't. Some of us think that it is okay to use animals for experimentation and to test new drugs. Some of us don't. Some of us think animals can be owned, others don't. Generally in this country, animals are assumed to be property.

Your question gives me the idea that you've got strong feelings about what is the appropriate way to treat animals. I would say that I generally agree, but there's no justification for using government to impose these beliefs on others.

Model Communities

It seems to me that one of the best ways to convince people about the workability (if any) of Lib'ianism would be to demonstrate such a society actually working on a small scale...

They're all over the place. You probably call them "malls". Think about it: People buy and sell as they wish, with no coercion. Yes, I'm being funny. There are examples of libertarianism all around, but I don't think it would be possible to have a libertarian community in this country. The problem? We'd have to convince Uncle Sam to forego taking a bunch of the inhabitants' money from the get-go.

Wrap-Up:

In a nutshell, and I think SingleDad would agree with this, free markets do not encourage the waste of resources. Since people generally want to get the maximum utility from their property, a free market encourages them to use resources wisely.


junebeetle:

Perhaps the problem with American education has little to do with whether or not it's paid for by government money.

I'm curious where you think "government money" comes from. That's not the government's money; it's our money. The government is not "providing" education. It is collecting our money and purchasing education on our behalf. Why does it work so badly? No choice, no competition. Imagine if the schools in your city had to actually compete for students, rather than being guaranteed them based on geography. Imagine how much more money would be available for education, if we took the money we are spending now, and gave it directly to the schools that we thought were best, rather than having a bunch of it siphoned off to support the government bureaucracy.

Many people pride themselves on the ability of America to come up with new and better things--computers, medicines, etc. It is free markets that encourages this. In just about every area where the government keeps its nose out of business, American business outpaces the rest of the world. That is the result of the power of markets. If we could apply this same effectiveness to education, we wouldn't have to worry about "catching up" with other countries. Very soon, we'd be beating the crap out of them.


Everyone:

I pulled a quote from the Harry Browne website you might enjoy:
If government must handle important things, why doesn't government provide free food for everyone -- as it provides free schooling for every child? One could live without knowing how to read but no one can live without food. So why doesn't government operate the supermarkets?

Imagine it. The food stores would become what the schools have become.

Political battles would decide which foods are available. If you didn't like the choices, you'd have to attend "food board" meetings and lobby state legislators.

Food would become more and more expensive, even as the quality deteriorated. Wilted vegetables, stale bread, and inferior meat would be the norm. So would vandalism and gangs. And don't get caught praying in the supermarket...

Now let's reverse the picture. Imagine instead that schools were operated like today's supermarkets. Most school systems would offer a variety of approaches to any one subject -- just as a supermarket offers a variety of brands for any one-food item. And if you didn't like what one school offered, or if you didn't like the way you or your child were treated, you could patronize another school.

If you wanted prayer in the school, you wouldn't have to pray to Congress to get it. You'd just take your child to a school that encouraged it.

You'd be able to choose between science or social engineering, calculus or condom use. If you wanted, you might even find a school that would teach your children to nag you about recycling, or that had other special programs to undermine parental authority and encourage moral smugness.

-VM

[Liberal]

tradesilicon

You have made my time here worthwhile. Thank you for your kindnesses.

junebeetle

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't the schools in the higher scoring nations with which we compare ourselves also publicly funded? Perhaps the problem with American education has little to do with whether or not it's paid for by government money.

Such an expedient phrase, "publicly funded". It innocuously conceals the tyranny by which the public loot is rounded up.

But yes, your point is valid: the quality of education, per se, has nothing to do with how it was funded, whether by voluntary payment from its users or by seizing property by force from users and nonusers alike. Quality of education (as with anything else) has to do with "ganas", or desire.

Maybe we should work on improving the system we've got ...

Haven't "we" been working on it for 200 years?

An example of how a Libertarian government might choose to prevent water pollution - enact a law that requires all intake pipes to be downstream of the outflow pipes for the same entity.That sounds like government regulation.

Lest you get the wrong idea from some other thread wherein a strawman libertarianism is being bashed, libertarians do not oppose government regulation per se. Coercion and fraud ought to be strictly "regulated" (i.e., prohibited). But your pursuit of your own happiness in your own way ought not to be "regulated", so long as you are peaceful and honest.

[Kimstu]

Naive questions, hell. You like the complicated ones. Allow me to point out that most of your questions are questions of policy.


Well, the issues may be complicated, but I assure you that my questions really are naive: I know nothing about Libertarianism except what I've picked up from these boards, and I presume there's more to know. Thanks for your responses, and I hope all other Lib'ians will feel free to add further opinions or information.


Here's a quote from Harry Browne:

Most environmental pollution to date has occurred because governments have allowed industries to pollute government property -- rivers, streams, lakes, roads, and lands. Most clear-cutting and strip-mining occur on government property because the offenders have no stake in the future value of the land. Pollution seldom occurs on private property, because property owners are concerned about the future value of their property. Obviously, pollution would diminish if more property were taken out of the hands of government and turned over to private owners for protection...

Huh?? Almost all pollution at least starts on, and most seriously affects, the polluter's privately owned industrial property. Consider the hog waste pollution that's currently a problem in North Carolina: the hog farmers are indeed polluting public property and other peoples' private property, but they're also polluting their own because the cost savings in hog production outweigh the degradation of the property value. The "stake" they have in "the future value of the land" is simply smaller than the benefits gained by polluting the land now, so polluting becomes an economically wise choice.

If you can't restrict your pollutants to your own property, there are two other options that can be economically wise: 1) let the pollutants spread to your neighbors on the assumption that you can make a satisfactory profit before they can punish you (as hog industries are currently doing), and 2) purchase enough property to create a "buffer" between other people's property and your own pollutants, and run your polluting but profitable operation to your heart's content. Either way, you certainly don't remove all or most incentives to pollute by making all property private.

And the above soundbite completely begs the question of whether a Lib'ian government really would be obliged to protect all its citizens from other people's pollution, and how much enforcement that would require.

[quote]
Is it true that Lib'ian principles exclude any kind of public land ownership or public prohibition of ownership? Would there be no city parks or national forests, etc.? If a Lib'ian society succeeded to a government like ours that does have public property, what would happen to that property?

This is correct. Governments are terribly inefficient and harmful in their use of resources, natural or otherwise. As to what would happen to it, that depends. Harry Browne would sell it all off and use the proceeds to pay off debts to citizens and enable the transition to a no-tax scheme.


Then doesn't it seem probable that many parks and wilderness areas would disappear, and many others would become much less accessible to the public, as buyers of that land found more profitable uses for it?


Some of us believe that animals have inalienable rights. Some of us don't. Some of us think that it is okay to use animals for experimentation and to test new drugs. Some of us don't. Some of us think animals can be owned, others don't. Generally in this country, animals are assumed to be property.

Your question gives me the idea that you've got strong feelings about what is the appropriate way to treat animals. I would say that I generally agree, but there's no justification for using government to impose these beliefs on others.


That's okay, I wasn't implying (nor do I believe) that individual Lib'ians don't care about animals. I was just asking whether Lib'ian principles would require the law to
treat animals solely as property, which indeed seems to be the case.

I must say that so far, I'm disappointed in what Libertarianism seems able to offer. I asked a whole bunch of questions about specific complicated problems because I've never seen convincing evidence that Lib'ianism would really deal with those problems. And I still haven't: all I see are abstract pronouncements about the importance of individual liberty and fundamental rights to property and freedom of markets. You may say that my questions are ("just"?) questions of policy, but I don't see the good of a political philosophy that isn't accompanied by a detailed and plausible policy for dealing with specific issues and problems. So far, it appears to me that a strictly Libertarian government (1) could not prevent (and, unless I missed something in Browne's statement, possibly wouldn't even punish) severe industrial pollution; (2) would make undeveloped land much more rare and far less accessible; (3) could not undertake to protect the safety or existence of any non-humans, whether "wild" or domestic; and (4) would consider these and other disadvantages adequately offset by restoring to me the approximately 30% of my income that I now spend on taxes. Big whoop. At the risk of being called an enemy of freedom, I have to say that, unless there's a whole storehouse of more thoughtful and realistic Lib'ian policy planning out there that I haven't seen, supporting Libertarianism as a practical form of government seems to me simply silly.

Kimstu

[Liberal]

Kimstu

So far I'm still completely convinced by SingleDad's arguments there, but maybe some of the Lib'ians can round out the picture for me.

Convinced of what?

With all due respect to SingleDad, whose postings I follow with great interest, fancy Latin names for perceived fallacies, borrowed from bookmarked web pages, do not an argument make. Not that this applies at all to SingleDad, but someone screaming "Fallacy! Fallacy!" might easily distract you from his own ample collection of them.

Freedom from pollution. 1 Does Lib'ian doctrine really maintain that all individuals have the right to be free from contamination of their air, land, and water by others? 2 As a non-car-owner and mass-transit advocate, it sounds great to me, but I gotta wonder: since almost all human activity results in some kind of pollution (even if it's just urine and excrement), exactly how much of what kinds of pollutants produced by other humans do we not have a right to be free from? 3 And would a Lib'ian government really undertake to check the activities of anyone who was polluting in excess of that amount? 4 In any reasonably large society, wouldn't that require a hell of a lot of law enforcement activity?

Oh.

Now it is clear to me what you have been convinced of, and why. Yes, within a libertarian context, civilization might have evolved quite differently. But with respect to your specific questions and comments here:

1 Unequivocally

2 You are free to urinate and excrete on your own property, or on property where the owner has given you permission (e.g., in a toilet at a service station).

3 If it did not, it would be in breach of its contract with its citizenry. And breach (a form of fraud, i.e., dishonest representation of your promises) is a serious coercion.

4 That depends entirely on whether the society is populated by people who have learned the consequences of their actions. Or not.

[i]No public property. 1 Is it true that Lib'ian principles exclude any kind of public land ownership or public prohibition of ownership? 2 Would there be no city parks or national forests, etc.? 3 If a Lib'ian society [succeeded a government] like ours that does have public property, what would happen to that property? 4 What about territorial waters? 5 Would a Lib'ian government consider itself and its citizens bound by international agreements of non-sovereignty, e.g., those affecting Antarctica, international waters, and the moon?

1 Not exactly. Volunteers may pool their resources to do whatever they wish, so long as they conduct their affairs peacefully and honestly. What libertarianism opposes is the establishment of "public property" (or anything else) by means of usurpation.

2 There would be Our Neighborhood Park, and Jones's Forest.

3 Inasmuch as the property in question was not owned by a rights bearing entity, its dispensation is greatly obfuscated. Likely, the process of claim-possession-title would have to start again from scratch.

And that is exactly the problem with so-called public property. If you ask who owns it, you might get the ready cliche, "Well, we all do." Nonsense. Ownership is the authority over property. Can we all build houses on it? Can we all sell it? The fact is that public property is owned by government. And if you say, "Oh, but we are the government," then I will say, "Yes, and I am connected to Kevin Bacon." The fact is that ownership of public property in our Fabianist society falls to an oligarchical cabal to which ordinary citizens, despite their delusions to the contrary, have no meaningful access.

4 Territorial? Do you mean waters that are claimed by nation-states? Such claims by non rights bearing entities are illegitimate, libertarianly speaking.

5 A libertarian government's sole bond is to its contracts with its citizens to secure their rights. It does not presume to represent its citizens in any capacity whatsoever, other than as their protector and as the arbritrator of their disputes.

Non-human rights? 1 Are there any rights considered to apply to non-humans in a Lib'ian society? 2 May you do anything you wish to an animal that belongs to you without falling afoul of ianti-cruelty or ii environmental protection laws? 3 What determines which animals belong to you? 4 What about animals that migrate from one owner's property to another's? 5 What about plants on your property that are needed to protect others' rights, e.g., could everyone deforest their land to below the minimum forestation levels needed to prevent degradation of the atmosphere?

1 Whether by happenstance or design, we find ourselves at the top of the food chain and capable of abstract thought (including thoughts like whether animals have rights). Nevertheless, since rights are an attribute of property, and property is established by ownership, and ownership is established ultimately by title (i.e., documentation of any arbitrary type that signifies a peaceful honest transfer of authority), any entity thus capable is rights bearing.

Thus, when presented with the Giant Squid scenario, my answer is that if the squids can produce title to their property, then they have a right to get it back.

2i While it is, in my opinion, a moral issue, it is not a civic one. Libertarianism is a political philosophy. As such, that issue is outside its scope. As a Christian, however, I find cruelty to animals to be morally repugnant, and to be manifested by a dead and cold spirit.

2ii There are no environmental protection laws, per se. If you want to trash your own home and set yourself afire, you have that right. But you have no rights with respect to the property of others.

3 Those which you have acquired peacefully and honestly belong to you.

4 What about them? What do you mean? Are you asking whether their owner is liable for trespass? If so, yes.

5 So long as you conduct your affairs peacefully and honestly, you may do anything with your property that you wish. Incidentally, there is no a priori reason to assume that a bureaucrat or politician cares more about your land than you do.

Model communities? 1 It seems to me that one of the best ways to convince people about the workability (if any) of Lib'ianism would be to demonstrate such a society actually working on a small scale, as nineteenth-century utopianists and twentieth-century communes endeavored to do with their "model communities." Are there presently any examples of local groups that have contracted to follow Lib'ian principles as far as possible? 2 They couldn't avoid federal and state regulation, of course, but they could incorporate as a small municipality on Lib'ian principles and at least have a Lib'ian local government. 3 Is this now happening anywhere, and if so, how's it going?

1 I doubt it, with one exception, noted in [3] below.

2 Ay, there's the rub. It is like slaves in the cotton field pretending they're free, a moment of distraction followed ultimately by disappointment and dispair.

3 Well, it was. That is, the Internet was once quite libertarian. Site owners made decisions with respect to their sites. Users made decisions with respect to their PCs. And parents made decisions with respect to their children.

But government, at long last, caught up to the technology. It is only a matter of time before it is reduced to a least common denominator of mediocrity and emptiness. Inevitably, the politicians will model it to serve their own purposes.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

You're welcome. Thank you for the questions.

[Liberal]

Kimstu

...supporting Libertarianism as a practical form of government seems to me simply silly.

I'm just curious. Do you support capitalism as a practical form of grocery store?

[Kimstu]

Libertarian: thanks for your detailed reply! I still feel about the same as I did after reading Smartass's post, but I'm getting a more complete picture.

One remark of yours, however, went right over my head:


Well, it was. That is, the Internet was once quite libertarian. Site owners made decisions with respect to their sites. Users made decisions with respect to their PCs. And parents made decisions with respect to their children.

But government, at long last, caught up to the technology. It is only a matter of time before it is reduced to a least common denominator of mediocrity and emptiness. Inevitably, the politicians will model it to serve their own purposes.


? Don't site owners, users, and parents still make decisions with respect to their sites, computers, and children respectively? I don't get your point.

Thanks again for explanations,
Kimstu

[Smartass]

Kimstu:

Well, the issues may be complicated, but I assure you that my questions really are naive: I know nothing about Libertarianism except what I've picked up from these boards, and I presume there's more to know.

Sorry, let me be more clear. Libertarianism is seen by many as a philosophical stance, particularly on this board. We talk a lot about the theory behind it. On the other hand, you can be Libertarian as a political position, in which case you would probably support candidates sponsored by the Libertarian party. The questions you are asking relate more to political aspects, while we tend more to focus on philosophical ones here. However, strictly speaking, the political positions should stem from the philosophy and should certainly not conflict with it. Given that, reasonable libertarians can disagree about the "perfect" governmental form or the best policies. In general, though, there would be very few policies.

Huh?? Almost all pollution at least starts on, and most seriously affects, the polluter's privately owned industrial property. Consider the hog waste pollution that's currently a problem in North Carolina: the hog farmers are indeed polluting public property and other peoples' private property...

If you are able to pollute your own private property without harming mine, then I don't really care--you know, humans produce garbage, and it has to go somewhere. However, if you are harming my property, not only should you be subject to criminal prosecution, but you should also be held liable for compensating me for my loss. Now, do you think these hog farmers will have any profits left after they pay for the damage they have done?

Either way, you certainly don't remove all or most incentives to pollute by making all property private.

We never said that was our goal. Is it yours? How will you achieve this? I'll bet you yourself pollute on your way to work. How shall we remove this incentive? And I'll bet eating causes you to do a certain amount of polluting as well. How shall we remove the incentive to do this?

Or, is it only certain pollution you want to remove the incentive for?

And the above soundbite completely begs the question of whether a Lib'ian government really would be obliged to protect all its citizens from other people's pollution, and how much enforcement that would require.

Libertarians believe that the sole purpose of government is to safeguard the rights of individuals, which includes free and unfettered use and enjoyment of your property. If someone is depositing arsenic onto your property, your rights are being violated. Is there a way I can be more clear?

Then doesn't it seem probable that many parks and wilderness areas would disappear, and many others would become much less accessible to the public, as buyers of that land found more profitable uses for it?

I guess that depends. If a lot of people want to look at the majesty of the Grand Canyon, then it would probably be profitable for the owners to keep it clean and available for this use. Same is true for other parks. People communicate the value of something by how much they are willing to sacrifice for it, which tends to be reflected in price/purchase decisions. I would say that if many park areas and wilderness were to disappear, they must have been more valuable used another way. Sometimes people value things for reasons other than profits. You assume that people will not make decisions that you approve of unless forced to by the government.

I asked a whole bunch of questions about specific complicated problems because I've never seen convincing evidence that Lib'ianism would really deal with those problems.

If that is your concern, then I can clear it up right here. Libertarians do not believe that the purpose of government is to solve problems. Attempting to solve problems with government generally only leads to the violation of individual rights and the worsening of problems. Efforts to end hunger and need in this country have done nothing but siphon trillions of dollars from people's paychecks while increasing the welfare rolls yearly. Efforts to prevent drug addiction have done nothing but create lot of victimless crimes, pack the prisons with nonviolent offenders, and open the doors for organized crime.

You're looking for a governmental philosophy that will solve problems. Keep looking. Libertarians have concluded that government cannot and will not solve problems. If you want the government to serve as everyone's parent, you should check into socialist and communist schemes, as they will probably be more to your liking. Of course, they don't solve problems either. In fact, they tend to make problems worse.

If we had a libertarian government, there would still be the same number of people who wanted to feed the hungry, prevent drug addiction, protect animals, and educate children. The only difference would be that they would have all their resources available to them and could devote as much or as little to the problems as dictated by their consciences. Solutions would be provided by the market based on how strongly they were desired. Market-based solutions are better and more effective.

unless there's a whole storehouse of more thoughtful and realistic Lib'ian policy planning out there that I haven't seen, supporting Libertarianism as a practical form of government seems to me simply silly.

Hmmm, so you think that the notions that

-markets produce better solutions than governments
-individuals are the best judges of their own self-interests
-no person or group should be allowed to violate the rights of any other
-the purpose of government is to protect and defend liberty

are silly? You don't believe that resources would be better utilized if subject to the free market than if controlled by a collective? You deny the evidence of a century of economic thought and experience. We have a number of economists who visit this board who would be interested in hearing your "thoughtful and realistic" refutations of the market theories they have dedicated their careers to.

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think the government is more qualified to solve problems than the individuals affected?

More importantly:
Let's say that you believe that dogs have a "right" to a certain life. Let's say that I think that dogs are property to be disposed of as I choose. These are both moral stances. What makes yours more valid than mine? What makes you entitled to impose your moral stance upon me?

Or, how about the whole drug war thing? I believe that a person has a right to control what goes into their bodies, whether it is good for them or bad for them. I think that attempting to prevent people from doing what they choose with their bodies (without violating the rights of others) is immoral. What is fair about having government take my money and spend it on "solutions" that I am morally opposed to?

-VM

[Kimstu]

Libertarian inquired:


..supporting Libertarianism as a practical form of government seems to me simply silly.

I'm just curious. Do you support capitalism as a practical form of grocery store?


Well, I guess I wouldn't say that I "support" capitalism or socialism or Fabianism or any other political philosophy per se. I have a complicated mix of abstract principles and practical policies that seem to me like good ideas, and what kind of "-ist" I am is determined by how closely those principles and policies match those of the various other "-ists" participating in political life. I would never vote for a "Capitalist" or "Socialist" candidate simply because I shared "capitalist" or "socialist" ideals; I would want to know exactly what approaches they were proposing to specific problems.

I love the ideals of freedom and voluntary contract and cooperation (although I must say that the concept of rights inhering in property rather than in existence seems totally kooky to me). But it seems clear to me that completely uncoerced freedom for everybody means that Bad Stuff's Gonna Happen; a political system is just a means of negotiating how much and what kinds of Bad Stuff we're willing to tolerate. It still appears very likely to me that running a society on Libertarian principles is going to result in a lot of Bad Stuff that I really don't want (not that I like the Bad Stuff we've got now, but I think a Lib'ian system seems prone to More and Worse). And instead of providing solid evidence and policy structures to convince me that my fears are unfounded, most if not all Lib'ians seem to be saying, "Be a Libertarian because we have a nobler political philosophy!" Uh-huh. Like I said: silly.

That's just me, though. Thanks for listening.

Kimstu

[tradesilicon]

Junebeetle, the fact that government-run schools in other countries are doing better than the government-run schools in the US does not say anything about privately-run schools vs. government-run schools. If we compare the waste and bureaucracy in government programs vs. privately owned business we find a consistent trend – government is not motivated to run things efficiently, after all it’s not their money! If they don’t produce results with a given budget they simply raise the budget. Private industry is always more efficient, and education will be no exception.

Sili

[Gilligan]

Kimstu: “…unless there's a whole storehouse of more thoughtful and realistic Lib'ian policy planning out there that I haven't seen…”
Lib’s provided one many times, although not in this thread. www.free-market.net. Lots of excellent material and links, and they have a forum like this one there, as well. I’m not sure if you’re expecting that libertarianism is a “finished” philosophy, where all the questions have already been answered, but all of us can assure you that it isn’t.

“I love the ideals of freedom and voluntary contract and cooperation” followed by “…running a society on Libertarian principles is going to result in a lot of Bad Stuff that I really don't want…” leads me to ask what you think causes Bad Stuff to happen. Bad Stuff happens when people are bad, or unethical, lose their way, turn to the dark side, (insert your own phrase here). No government has ever or will ever change or prevent this. The libertarian philosophy holds that not only will government never change or prevent this, but that government makes it worse. Thus the constant focus on a minimal scope for governments.

[earendel1]

libertarian

[quote]That depends on how (or whether) your rights are secured. The same is true of your neighbors. In Libertaria, you do not make decisions with respect to their property; neither do they make decisions with respect to yours.

But that's impossible -- any decision I make is going to affect those around me. If I decide to raise pigs, my decision will definitely have an impact on those around me.

In a proper model, rights do not conflict.

Only in an idealistic society. Unless you have a far different understanding of "rights" than I do. Perhaps you'd care to explain what you mean by the term.

Again, that depends on how your rights are secured. If you are securing your own (that is, you are an anarchist) then what you do will be determined by your own wits and ethics. If, on the other hand, you have hired a libertarian government to secure your rights, then the onus is upon it to use whatever force necessary to stop your property from being polluted.

I see.

I have said nothing about "needs".

That's correct, and I apologize for my attempt to be flippant. My point was that I interpreted your statements to indicate that an individual's rights were paramount, taking precedence over the rights of others. But it seems that there are only two choices -- either the "tyranny of the majority" or the "tyranny of the individual". The purpose of government -- any government -- is to negotiate conflicting rights.

For those who appreciate a less abstract model, the above means that if even one individual's rights are abridged by any praxis, then that praxis must cease. Period. Else, a disequilibrium is introduced to the set, and {R} is no longer identical for each element. In other words, your decision that your peacefully and honestly acquired land may not be polluted (just like your decision that your life may not be ended), limits the license that others may bear. That is, no one may pollute your land with a car. Thus, the necessity of pollutionless transportation is universal.

Thus my right to be pollution-free overrides someone else's right to travel when and where he or she might want (one of the fundamental problems with public transportation). How does one decide which right (or set of rights) takes precedence?

Now, that is your right. To breathe clean air. To live without being urinated on. When you decide how you will secure your rights is when you might give consideration to consenting to be governed by an entity that will indeed secure them. Or not.

As I see it, the price of living in an ordered society is surrendering the unfettered exercise of individual rights. We compromise for the greater good.

Does that help?

Yes, but as you can see, it doesn't convince me.

[Kimstu]

Gilligan, thanks for the link. You said:


“I love the ideals of freedom and voluntary contract and cooperation” followed by “…running a society on Libertarian principles is going to result in a lot of Bad Stuff that I really don't want…” leads me to ask what you think causes Bad Stuff to happen. Bad Stuff happens when people are bad, or unethical, lose their way, turn to the dark side, (insert your own phrase here). No government has ever or will ever change or prevent this.


Very true, but governments do prevent certain kinds of Bad Stuff from happening, or from happening beyond a certain extent. Epidemics and crime, for example, are affected by governments' policies on vaccination and law enforcement. As I said, choosing or modifying a political system is just a matter of negotiating how much and what kinds of Bad Stuff you'll put up with.


The libertarian philosophy holds that not only will government never change or prevent this, but that government makes it worse.


I definitely agree that governments often try to solve the wrong problems, solve problems very badly or not at all, and/or make other problems worse in the process. But I don't see any foundation for asserting that the vast majority of problems will therefore be solved better and faster if there's no government involvement with them. (Maybe I'll find some when I read the sources in the link you provided, but so far it still sounds to me like mere wishful thinking.)

Here's where my earlier question about model communities comes in. If Lib'ians believe that people can solve most social problems better without government interference, I would think that the best way for them to convince other people of that would be to tackle some social problems (in a small and local way) and solve them on their own. Then they could point to those achievements and say, "See how unnecessary government interference is?" Other communities would imitate them, and society would gradually become Libertarian from the bottom up instead of from the top down. When Lib'ians persist in saying "society would work much better on Libertarian principles but there's no way to demonstrate that without first dismantling most governmental functions and removing all taxation," it smells a bit fishy to me. Sounds nice, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it---and you're asking me to bet the whole country.

Kimstu

[Smartass]

Kimstu:

If Lib'ians believe that people can solve most social problems better without government interference, I would think that the best way for them to convince other people of that would be to tackle some social problems (in a small and local way) and solve them on their own. Then they could point to those achievements and say, "See how unnecessary government interference is?"

-Problem: People are concerned about how fattening pre-prepared food is.
Libertarian solution: Recognizing these concerns, companies like Slimfast start offering low-fat versions of pre-prepared meals of all different kinds.
-Problem: People are concerned about animals being abandoned to starve.
Libertarian solution: These people contribute to organizations like the Humane Society which establishes shelters for abandoned animals and tries to find homes for them.
-Problem: People are concerned about the working conditions of employees of Nike in other countries.
Libertarian solution: People begin spreading the word to their friends and many vow to not purchase Nike products. Nike, not wanting to lose business, begins to make improvements.
-Problem: People want faster and better computers.
Libertarian solution: Companies like Intel and IBM devote massive amounts of research money into developing faster, better computer equipment.
-Problem: People are distressed that Microsoft is taking over the computer industry.
Libertarian solution: Linus Torvalds creates an alternate operating system and offers it for free. Be Systems creates a graphics-oriented OS called BeOS and offers it for sale.
Problem: People don't want to look too old as they age.
Libertarian solution: Plastic surgeons work to come up with newer and better techniques for concealing and repairing the effects of age.
Problem: Many men have trouble achieving erection as they age.
Libertarian solution: Drug companies invest money in "cures" for erectile dysfunction, coming up with increasingly better choices; most recently, Viagra.
-Problem: Disaster victims are left without homes and livelihoods and need some help to re-build.
Libertarian solution: People contribute to charities, like the Red Cross, which move in to offer aid when disasters occur.
-Problem: People are concerned about the harm to the evironment done by the styrofoam containers used to package McDonald's sandwiches.
Libertarian solution: People share their concerns with friends. Eventually, a large group of people make clear to McDonald's that they will no longer do business with them while they insist on harming the environment. McDonald's, after having sworn that they will not change their packaging because of quality concerns, devises new packaging that does not contain styrofoam.

See how unnecessary government interference is?

...society would gradually become Libertarian from the bottom up instead of from the top down.

Our society started out very libertarian. It is steadily becoming less libertarian from the top down. Two problems:
1. Politicians and liberal media daily work to convince people that government intervention is the only way to solve "big" problems.
2. Key to people being able to solve their own problems is free use of all their property. When you consider all federal, state, and local taxes, most Americans are losing control of about half of their incomes. Doesn't leave too much for free use.

When Lib'ians persist in saying "society would work much better on Libertarian principles but there's no way to demonstrate that without first dismantling most governmental functions and removing all taxation," it smells a bit fishy to me. Sounds nice, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it---and you're asking me to bet the whole country.

We don't say that. Look around you. Notice that, for most industries, the less government involvement, the better the businesses are run and the more able they are to please their customers.

When liberals say, "Let us take your money and use our greater knowledge to ensure that all your problems are solved," it sounds a bit fishy to me. Sounds nice, but I wouldn't bet half my money on it, particularly not based on past performance.

Kimstu and earendel1:

I notice you guys have stopped responding to my posts. I am trying to be helpful. However, if I am wasting your time, let me know--I have my hands pretty full in some other threads.

-VM

[avalongod]

first let me say I know absolutely nothing about Libertarianism, so please pardon any ignorance. I have been reading the posts with interest and find many good intentions behind the Libertarian perspective.

However one thing that strikes me is that this perspective SEEMS to depend heavily upon the general good will of all citizens. It seems similar to humanism in that it assumes that all individuals are "born good" and if left to their own devices, would contribute our fair share. I would suspect however that many individuals would prey upon such a society, a large percentage would fail to contribute a fair share, and only a fraction would actually take the opportunity to heart.

Again, pardon if I have misinterpreted or misunderstood any of the posts. <ducking the incoming bitch-slaps)

[Smartass]

avalongod:

Hmmm, sounds paradoxical. Under libertarianism, if you don't produce, you don't eat, unless someone else takes it upon themselves to feed you. So, you think people will be too selfish to support themselves, but others will be too generous to let them starve? Interesting theory.

Libertarianism depends on the fact that people will make sacrifices in support of their needs, beliefs, and interests. If I want a DVD player badly enough, I will work to make money to pay for it.

Where do you see an opportunity to abuse the system by not contributing?

-VM

[Gilligan]

Kimstu, you mentioned crime, and that is in fact the one problem that government is supposed to solve. Much of the disagreement going on in all these threads are over the questions of 1.) what exactly do we mean by "crime", and 2.) how whould we "solve" it? All this discussion requires using other terms, such as "rights", and then those terms get discussed. Educational, isn't it? (And not even tax funded.) I can't really comment too much on the economics part of the debate, or provide solutions for education and public health, but again, keep in mind that there isn't a libertarian "bible" with the solutions to these or any problems. Libertarians are just those who think these problems can be best solved by people in a context of freedom.

I see your point about what kind of Bad Stuff you'll put up with, but let me ask this: who do you think should decide what kind of Bad Stuff you should have to put up with - you, or your government? Who do you think decides that now?

avalongod, your point about "general good will of all citizens" is phrased well (much better than the typical "everybody would have to be libertarian for this to work!"). I would think all libertarians would agree on this one point, that any society worth living in depends on the good will of the citizens. Personally, I am on the "born good" side; I'm there are lib's on the "born bad" side, too, which seems contradictory to me.

[Kimstu]

Smartass said:


I notice you guys have stopped responding to my posts. I am trying to be helpful.


Sorry Smart, didn't mean to be rude---your posts are indeed informative, it's just there's been a lot of traffic here. I can manage a response to a few points:



Not a thing, in both cases, if we're talking about some kind of absolute morality; there's no context-free way to evaluate whether or how mine is better than yours. I really don't believe much in moral absolutism or natural law or those kinds of notions; as far as I can tell, morality doesn't really exist outside of a social consensus. I don't think it violates the rights of the individual (as I see individual rights, that is) for society to establish a moral code that conflicts with individuals' moral codes in some places. I can try to change society's moral code to make it better conform to mine, and I think society should be careful how it defines its moral code, but I'm not fundamentally outraged by the mere fact that a moral code not identical to mine has social sanction and that the law makes me submit to it.

I notice that Lib'ians cannot totally avoid such conflicts either, if the discussions of abortion policy that I encountered at free-market.net are any indication: some Lib'ians believe that the Lib'ian definition of a rights-bearing unit applies to fetuses and others do not, and each group would wish a Lib'ian society to impose its own definition on all citizens. To me, that's just an unavoidable part of what societies do.

[quote]
-Problem: People are concerned about how fattening pre-prepared food is.
-Problem: People are concerned about animals being abandoned to starve.
-Problem: People are concerned about the working conditions of employees of Nike in other countries.
-Problem: People want faster and better computers.
-Problem: People are distressed that Microsoft is taking over the computer industry.
-Problem: People don't want to look too old as they age.
-Problem: Many men have trouble achieving erection as they age.
-Problem: Disaster victims are left without homes and livelihoods and need some help to re-build.
-Problem: People are concerned about the harm to the evironment done by the styrofoam containers used to package McDonald's sandwiches.

See how unnecessary government interference is?


It's an interesting list. The first thing I noticed about it was that most of these "social problems" are comparatively minor dissatisfactions of the well-to-do. (Not that I mean to trivialize the trauma of erectile dysfunction, gentlemen! but it is fairly benign as health problems go, and anyway the current "solution" still doesn't cover most of the poor people who suffer from it.)

Putting the societal evils of high-calorie TV dinners, underperforming computers, Microsoft's market share, and facial wrinkles also on the back burner for the time being, we're left with the more serious problems of abused pets, Nike sweatshops, devastation from natural disasters, and environmental degradation from styrofoam. Let's take a look at what's actually involved in the "Libertarian solutions" to them.

Abused pets. Private organizations do indeed do wonderful work in animal rescue. I note, however, that as social problems go, saving pets is certainly one of our cutest and cuddliest, and naturally provokes a high degree of concern among citizens. Even with that advantage, however, such organizations frequently seek help from governments, as in this story (http://envirolink.yellowbrix.com/pages/envirolink/Story.nsp?story_id=10831841&ID=envirolink) about a referendum to build an animal shelter.

Nike sweatshops. Again, individuals did admirable work in bringing pressure to bear via the Fair Labor Association and the Workers' Rights Coalition. However, Nike's response has been quite sluggish, as this recent story (http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/headlines/2000/100.html) notes:


One of Nike's objections to the WRC is that the latter's code mandates companies producing logo clothing to pay their workers a living wage. Jeff Ballinger, director of Press for Change, a U.S. organization which has tracked Nike labor practices in Indonesia for nearly a decade, stated: "Nike has been seeking cover for years behind its claim that a living wage is unverifiable. Meanwhile, research has repeatedly demonstrated that Nike shoe workers are being paid at below the subsistence level, even if we accept Nike's own unreliable claims about its pay rate."


Moreover, the same story (and others you'll find by searching on "Nike sweatshops") describes some of the ways Nike is using its economic clout to retaliate against some groups and institutions that have been exerting this pressure. So this isn't quite a success story yet.

Natural disasters. Indeed, let's hear it for the Red Cross and similar organizations; but the federal government, of course, plays a much larger role in disaster relief.

Styrofoam packaging. Three cheers also for the consumer groups that convinced McDonalds to change to more eco-friendly packaging: but you'll notice on this page (http://www.mcspotlight.org/people/witnesses/recycling\lipsett_brian.html) at the site of one of those very groups that the public became concerned about this issue only after publication of research by those very un-Libertarian organizations, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Bureau of Standards, indicating that styrofoam appeared to pose non-negligible dangers to health and the environment. Without this government-sponsored research, McDonalds might still be distributing styrofoam boxes at every drive-thru.

"Libertarian solutions?" Not so much. Putting it all together, Smartass, I have to respond that nope, I don't yet see how unnecessary government interference is in solving social problems. I haven't looked into the history of the "problems" you described that I characterized as comparatively trivial, but even if the government contributed nothing to solving any of them, it would just indicate that "Libertarian principles" result in better consumer products for consumers who can afford them. Wow, commercial markets respond to consumer demands! Wait, I think I already knew that. Still doesn't inspire me to set about dismantling the government.

Kimstu

[Smartass]

Kimstu:

there's no context-free way to evaluate whether or how mine is better than yours.

And I would say there is no reason to. I would say that, as long as you can do it without initiating force or fraud against me, you should be free to live your life and dispose of your property in support of your moral code. And I should have the same freedom. And everyone else.

as far as I can tell, morality doesn't really exist outside of a social consensus.

And what is consensus? The majority makes decisions for the minority. Kept slavery going for a long time.

The question of abortion is an interesting one. Libertarians tend to agree about what rights an individual should have. The problem with abortion is that there is no agreed upon way of determining when a person is vested with those rights.

The first thing I noticed about it was that most of these "social problems" are comparatively minor dissatisfactions of the well-to-do.

This is necessarily so. The government has taken it upon itself to solve the "big" problems. There's no need to pick apart the list, as I just threw out what came to mind because you asked for example of the success of "libertarian policies". The simple fact is that anything that you buy that solves your problem, from deodorant to insect spray to bubblegum is an example of how libertarian policies solve problems. The point is that markets work to provide what people want most. It works for poor people too. You think that no goods are marketed to the poor?

If enough people want a "problem" solved and are willing to give up something of value for the "solution", markets will endeavor to provide at least one, and usually many, solutions. This is true regardless of the type of problem. And because markets don't require "consensus" and the participants must compete to remain in the market, the solutions tend to be more varied and to increase in efficiency over time.

Governments, on the other hand, are not governed by market forces. They tend to provide solutions that are arbitrary and inefficient, and in general do not solve the original problems. Often, they make the problems worse. Also, the bigger the problem, and the more government tries to solve it, the more freedom the people lose. The drug war is an excellent example of this.

"Libertarian principles" result in better consumer products for consumers who can afford them.

And what decides whether they can afford them? How badly they want them. I can afford a boat. However, I want electricity in my house more, so I forego the boat and buy electricity.

Obviously, the amount of money you have affects what things you can afford. Some people will always have more options in this regard than others. Government cannot change this.

Wow, commercial markets respond to consumer demands! Wait, I think I already knew that. Still doesn't inspire me to set about dismantling the government.

Haven't suggested dismantling the government. Think about this: Who responds more quickly to demands, governments or markets? Who provides the greatest variety of potential solutions, governments or markets? Who uses resources more efficiently to provide services, governments or markets?

The point is not that governments are totally incapable of solving any problems, or that free markets will solve every problem. But, given the same set of problems and individual desire to solve them, markets will do much better.

Why would the government be better at solving problems of pollution, poverty, animal cruelty, education, etc. than markets? Do you think governments are better at it? If so, wouldn't it make sense to have the government be in charge of everything?

-VM

[junebeetle]

Smartass:
I'm curious where you think "government money" comes from. That's not the government's money; it's our money. The government is not "providing" education. It is collecting our money and purchasing education on our behalf.


Cripes, do I really sound that dumb? Maybe I should start using more esoteric words, like "praxis".

Why does it work so badly? No choice, no competition. Imagine if the schoolsin your city had to actually compete for students, rather than being guaranteed them based on geography.


I have little doubt that private schools can be more efficient than public schools (my own excellent public school education notwithstanding). I also have a feeling that the best private schools could probably beat the crap out of the best public schools.

It's a tradeoff, just like everything else. If all schools are private, you get exactly the education you pay for. That's great for Mr. Millionaire, who can afford to send his kids to the very best school in Libertaria. Mr. Millionaire's kids would get a kick-ass education --- a lot better than any education they'd get in public schools. Of course, the rest of us would have to send our kids to Buck's Discount Skools, Inc.

I realize that freedom from restrictions is highly valued by Libertarians. But what about the big picture? A private school system may sound attractive because of the higher level of choice and competition it offers on an individual basis, but what are the end results? An undereducated population in which only the rich and powerful have access to good schooling? High rates of poverty, diseases and crime? An even lower standard of education than the current public school system we love to gripe about? I'd certainly be willing to pay taxes and sacrifice some choice and efficiency for the benefits of a universally educated populace. Just because the public school system has problems, it doesn't mean that a private school system wouldn't suffer from even more problems of a different nature.

Libertarian:
Such an expedient phrase, "publicly funded". It innocuously conceals the tyranny by which the public loot is rounded up.


Holy cow. Your idea of tyranny is my idea of civil responsibility. There are more important freedoms than keeping 100% of my income to myself. You say that the current tax system is unfair. I agree. You say that too much money is wasted on top-heavy bureaucracies. I agree. But tyranny? Considering the brutal history of the human race, I don't think either of us knows real tyranny.

Forgive me for generalizing, but Libertarianism sounds suspiciously like an attempt to justify an economy of instant gratification. Individualism is great and all, but we do live in a society. You just can't have it all! Ultimate freedom comes with a price, no matter how many examples of free market innovation you invoke to convince me that the problems will naturally solve themselves. I have serious doubts as to whether these free market solutions are strong enough to create a healthy, stable society.

Anyway, all of this speculation is meaningless until a libertarian society can be tested in the real world. I'd like to see how it turns out (although I wouldn't want to live there). Any thoughts about buying a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific and running an experimental libertarian society?

- JB

[avalongod]

Smartass:

Pardon if I seemed paradoxical...it was not an intention to challenge your beliefs, but rather to understand them. You reply helped elucidate things a bit.

Let me go a bit further now (and again I may post challenge-type questions simply to learn, not to say I am disagreeing or feel that you are wrong). My next concern would be...going by what you say, that individuals would produce and be beneficial to society in order to meet their own needs. However it seems to me that societies often require people to give more than simply what is required to meet their own needs. For instance an individual might work to get their DVD player, but would not willingly contribute to the building of roads, care for the elderly, etc...if he/she thinks others will take on that burdon. What would stop me (and others) from failing to contribute to the public welfare...things like police, fire, public maintenance, sewers, etc...rather than put the burdon on my more generous natures (I am not saying I would really do this of course, just speaking hypothetically, although I suspect many would.)

Again, these questions likely reflect my ignorance of libertarianism, and for that I appologize. But at the moment it still seems libertarianism depends upon an informal infrastructure of goodwill...which actually makes me wonder also how "public welfare" can be maintained without at least some of the bureaucracy that government supplies?

[Smartass]

junebeetle:

If all schools are private, you get exactly the education you pay for.

And if they are public, you get less.

Mr. Millionaire's kids would get a kick-ass education --- a lot better than any education they'd get in public schools. Of course, the rest of us would have to send our kids to Buck's Discount Skools, Inc.

Why would Mr. Millionaire's kids need a good education?

Let me ask you some questions: Does anyone, besides yourself, benefit from your education? Like, say, maybe your employer, your local community? Are there any other people, like yourself, who think that it is important for as many people as possible to be educated?

Libertarians, or at least most of them, do not advocate a policy of "every man for himself". My first eight years of school were at a private, Catholic school. My parents had to pay tuition for me to attend there. The tuition was higher than what it should have been. The reason: The school charged higher rates to paying students so it could afford to allow in Catholics who could not afford to attend.

Also, why do you assume that cheaper schools would provide low-quality education? So far, the government is spending more on education every year, and SAT scores are going down.

Let's say that you and the other people in your town decide that you want every child to be educated and, as it happens to be a democracy, you vote to collect a local sales tax in order to fund a local school. Do you think a libertarian federal or state government would stop you?

Let's say you live in farming community, and the people vote that children should not have to attend school past, say, 8th grade, since the course after that aren't very practical for your lives. Do you think a libertarian government would force you to provide more?

Do you prefer clothes that are your size, or do you prefer one size fits all?

Would you like creationism to be taught to your children in school? Evolution? Would you like the curriculum to include any kind of religious instruction? Would you like to have a choice?

Do you think that, at your current age, you should be focusing your money on educating your kids? Paying off debts? Health insurance? Helping out others in need? Do you think that your money would be better spent if you could decide where it went?

A private school system may sound attractive because of the higher level of choice and competition it offers on an individual basis, but what are the end results? An undereducated population in which only the rich and powerful have access to good schooling?

How much do you think an education costs? How many people do you think could not afford an education for their children if they had all their money? Does it benefit the rich and powerful to allow everyone else to be uneducated?

Here are some things you are currently spending money on:
-Fighting a drug war that is unwinnable.
-Purchasing agricultural products and destroying them so that prices will be artificially high (for everyone).
-Sending armed invasion forces into other countries in order to force them to act in a manner that the U.S. approves of.
-Catching and preventing people from entering the country and looking for work.
-Spying on allies and enemies.
-Expanding teacher payrolls to achieve arbitrary class-size targets.
-Imprisoning and feeding thousands of people who have not hurt anyone but themselves.
-Supplying able-bodied adults with more food and money than they could gain by working, and punishing them if they do.
-Providing comprehensive medical insurance to retired millionaires.

Chances are, you probably approve of some of these expenditures and don't approve of others. Do you not think that your money would be better spent if it just went to things that you believe are necessary?

I'd certainly be willing to pay taxes and sacrifice some choice and efficiency for the benefits of a universally educated populace.

Is that what you're getting? Would you be willing to pay less and have more choice and efficiency and a better-educated populace?

Just because the public school system has problems, it doesn't mean that a private school system wouldn't suffer from even more problems of a different nature.

I think you know that I have given more justifications that "because public shools have problems". Just because the market provides better solutions to such problems as computer design, medical research, food production and distribution, and technological advances doesn't mean that it couldn't also provide better education...I guess. You support inefficient systems because you are afraid that, without government interference, the market would not provide you with things that you want and are willing to pay for. I don't get it.

As to the second part of your post: In Lib's defense, when some portion of the population dictates to another portion how they should live or spend their money, it is tyranny. What you are disputing is just a matter of degree. Originally, this country was founded on the notion of preventing all tyranny.

I guess you're not real big on the Constitution either, though.

-VM

[Smartass]

avalongod:

For instance an individual might work to get their DVD player, but would not willingly contribute to the building of roads, care for the elderly, etc...if he/she thinks others will take on that burdon.

Are we talking about the U.S. or some Libertaria? If we are talking about Libertaria, best ask Libertarian. However, I imagine that he would say that if you don't pay for roads, then you don't get to use them, as they are private property, like everything else.

In the U.S., under our current Constitution, there is nothing to prevent government funding of roads, but it would fall to state government. As for care for the elderly, most people could provide for their own retirement if they had all their money. Those that couldn't would rely on family or charity--just not coerced charity.

What would stop me (and others) from failing to contribute to the public welfare...things like police, fire, public maintenance, sewers, etc

Well, would you like for the fire department to come if your house caught on fire? To be honest, you could have locally financed fire departments and still be in a libertarian country. Or, you could have fire departments that charge per visit, much like many ambulance services. Police are maintained by local governments to protect the rights of citizens. Of course, no police force can provide the kind of protection that citizens can provide for themselves, which is why the 2nd Amendment is so important.

But at the moment it still seems libertarianism depends upon an informal infrastructure of goodwill...

As does taxpayer-funded welfare. If most people don't mind allowing fellow citizens to starve, then they will, regardless of the government. If most people do not believe in allowing others to starve, then they won't let them. Our system just happens to have fooled a lot of people into thinking that it can provide better solutions than they can find for themselves.

which actually makes me wonder also how "public welfare" can be maintained without at least some of the bureaucracy that government supplies?

Most businesses require some amount of bureaucracy. However, government provides a lot more of it, at greater cost, than is necessary.

-VM

[waterj2]

junebeetle:
Holy cow. Your idea of tyranny is my idea of civil responsibility. There are more important freedoms than keeping 100% of my income to myself.

Then don't. That doesn't give you the right to come over to me with a gun and demand my share as well.

On the issues of roads and other things our government currently provides, I have a few more ways things could still work in a libertarian context.

People want roads to where they live. The principles of supply and demand would indicate that someone could do good business in providing these roads at the cheapest rates. Large companies could be formed that run a system of toll roads for profit. These companies could also use their equipment to build roads for neighborhood groups that want to pay. They would probably find it profitable to build roads to ddensely populated areas for free to increase the use (and therefore profit) on the toll roads.

Education, as Smartass mentioned, does not have to be the same cost for everyone, and in private schools often isn't. Also, education is not something that costs more as the quality increases. The primary need is committed techers, and the evidence is pretty abundant that teachers aren't in it for the money.

Home insurance companies could always provide a fire protection service for their clients. They would have an incentive to protect something they have made an investment in.

I'd love to see if publice transportation could be run privately. I've long had a dream of building my own competing subway system in Boston, due to various complaints with the current one, but I have no idea how it would be posible to build one without government power.

As for parks and forests, these can often be privately operated. People seem to have the impression that if we offered the Grand Canyon for sale that someone will buy it and put a huge factory in the middle or something. The Grand Canyon is far better suited (from a profitability standpoint) to be a tourist attraction than to be a garbage dump. I've heard that paper companies use some of their forests for recreation purposes when they're not being used for logging.

If you look, you will often see that the things that the government does that are good could be done for profit by a private entity that can do it for a low cost due to overlap with one of its other purposes. If you and your neighbors wanted fire protection, you could purchase it on your own. Since your insurance company stands to benefit from your fire protection, it would be wiser to get it to share the cost as well. The same logic can be used with other services the government provides.

[sqweels]

Let's look at the sewers as an example. Currently we have a system of sewage mains and treatment plants run by the local government. How could there be several competing sewage mains under every street, as a libertarian system would expect. Would such a system guarentee that every home was connected at all? Even if it wasn't profitable? Shit piling up is Bad Stuff indeed, regardless of how pure of heart you are. One household with abysmal sanitation can spread disease all over town. Suppose a family of hillbillies moved to town who were used to collecting their waste in buckets and dumping it in a nearby stream. Should they have that choice? They may not understand the health concerns, but they're still important. The stream may run through their property, but it affects others downstream. How does libertarianism deal with pollution of rivers and streams?

I can't imagine anything more efficient than the current system of one set of sewage mains leading to one treatment plant that we all pay a little to keep running. Government is solving a problem while not creating any new ones. Frankly, I don't know if my share comes out of my property taxes, income taxes, water bill, or garbage bill. All I know is it isn't much, and the shit goes away when I flush. That's one less thing to worry about. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[sqweels]

So much nonsense, so little time to respond.

Should everyone have to pay a toll whenever they back out of their driveway and turn from one road onto another? If streets are to be paid for by groups of neighbors, how will they enforce payment on one another? Is every imaginable government service going to be converted to something I'll have to go out of my way to deal with? What a pain in the ass!

What if my next-door neighbor chooses not to pay for fire protection and his house cathces fire? Doesn't that threaten my house? If he's not home, I won't know if he has protection or with which private fire department, so who do I call if not the fire department? Multiple competing firefighting companies will each have smaller budgets (or charge a lot more) and thus be less well equipped than a real fire department, yet there will be considerable duplication in equipment and personnel. Very inefficient.

I don't know what's worse about a lot of these libertarian scenarios, that they're totally unrealistic or that they're downright scary. If a city auctions off its parkland, who do you think will be the highest bidder, a development company or a group of neighbors scraping together donations? Some privately owned parkland might be profitable to operate (and more expensive to visit), but more will be comercially developed or simply posted for no tresspassing.

The answer to my original question as to whether libertarian society would protect the environment appears to be a resounding "NO" (despite some serious contradictions). Not only can you do whatever you want on private land, but all land will be private. Long-term, imperceptible harm, to the atmosphere, to groundwater, to wildlife, is ignored.

The idea that every problem will be solved by people getting together in sufficient numbers with sufficient economic power is hopelessly naive. Given a choice, people will spend their money on their short-term self intersts, ans that's a fact. The suggestion seem to be that no problem can be no more serious than the extent to which "people want" to spend money addressing it. If few people want to switch to electric cars, then auto emissions must be no big deal. To heck with what the "experts" say. They couldn't possibly know whatI want, and what I want is the only thing that's important. Me, me, me.

p.s. Kimstu: How did you manage to download a bootleg copy of my brain?

[Smartass]

Okay, this is getting repetitive.

It is not the libertarian position that people should have to pay tolls every time they turn onto a different road.

It is not the libertarian position that fire departments become illegal.

It is not the libertarian position that government be abolished.

There is no rule anywhere that things that work better when shared must be owned and administered by the government.

You guys are asking how things would work in a libertarian society. We can tell you generally how they would work. We cannot tell you how fire departments, sewers, and roads would work. That's the whole point. In a free market system, they may work one way in one community and another an hour down the road. Rather than assuming there is one best answer to every question, libertarians assume there are a lot of possible answers and that, given time, the ingenuity of people will produce better and more efficient solutions.

Strict libertarian philosophy would call for things to be as Libertarian describes them. However, to transform society into that, at least at this point, is not even imaginable. I don't personally know any libertarians who are recommending overthrowing the government. However, most libertarians feel very strongly about reducing the government back to the limits placed on it by the Constitution.

As it is, we answer questions about libertarian philosophy and you want to talk policy. Within a few exchanges, everyone is positing end-of-the-world scenarios. And you still don't get what it is that libertarianism is about: Freedom is better than government stewardship. No one is more qualified to make decisions for any individual than that individual himself. Freedom is not practical unless it applies equally to everyone. The purpose of government is to defend freedom.

Libertarians are not against group efforts or sharing. They are against coercive socialist programs that deprive one person's rights for the benefit of another.

-VM

[sqweels]

Look, it's perfectly simple: Civilization requires there to be economic infrastructure, which must be paid for. The only way to do that is to force every member of society to chip in their fair share in taxes. Even the smallest communities need to have a government with the power to coerce payments to the tax base. One community might want to have its sewer system owned by the government and built and run by government employees, while another contracts the whole thing out to private companies, but the money still has to come from tyrannically coerced payments from each one of us (not just "you").

Tax rates tend to be based on ability to pay. Is this fair? I suppose that depends on which factors you allow into the equation (although sometimes it seems one of the freedoms libertarians are demanding is freedom from fairness). At any rate, it's not just a case of money being taken from one person and given to another. We all benefit from the things we help government to pay for. You can drive youself crazy trying to calculate whether you benefit less or more than you pay for because it's a system of infinite complexity. A rich man may have to pay a lot more in taxes, but his customers, employees, and suppliers all benefit from roads and schools, and he benefits it turn. Even if you insist it doesn't add up, I can still say "look, you're rich! Quit complaining!" A well-off American is one on the luckiest people who ever lived. Some countries have very harsh policies toward the rich, others have vast amounts of desititute poor people. The great thing about the U.S. is that we go for the "happy medium".

[Kimstu]

Smartass remarked on my post:


"Libertarian principles" result in better consumer products for consumers who can afford them.

And what decides whether they can afford them? How badly they want them. I can afford a boat. However, I want electricity in my house more, so I forego the boat and buy electricity.

Obviously, the amount of money you have affects what things you can afford. Some people will always have more options in this regard than others. Government cannot change this.


Certainly, government can't and shouldn't arrange things so that everyone has exactly the same stuff and the same options over the whole course of their lives. But government can try to arrange things so as to establish a certain minimal set of options. Your decision to forego buying a boat because you'd rather have electricity in your home seems like a reasonable trade-off between different desiderata. But if you were poor, you might be having to choose, say, between food and basic education, or (if we assume that your alternative to homelessness is a job handling dangerous carcinogens) between shelter and health. Most non-Libertarians don't feel that those are acceptable trade-offs. You may fume about the interfering socialists who would wantonly trample on other people's rights just so that you could have both education and food, but I don't think you're going to change a lot of minds that way.


Think about this: Who responds more quickly to demands, governments or markets? Who provides the greatest variety of potential solutions, governments or markets? Who uses resources more efficiently to provide services, governments or markets?

The point is not that governments are totally incapable of solving any problems, or that free markets will solve every problem. But, given the same set of problems and individual desire to solve them, markets will do much better.

Why would the government be better at solving problems of pollution, poverty, animal cruelty, education, etc. than markets? Do you think governments are better at it? If so, wouldn't it make sense to have the government be in charge of everything?


I think markets are indeed terrific at solving certain kinds of problems. Specifically, at the risk of stating the obvious, markets are very good at doing things that make money. That's why the Libertarian solutions you mentioned to various consumer desires, for things like low-fat prepared foods and cosmetic treatments for aging skin, work so well: markets tend to be very efficient at satisfying the material demands of consumers who are affluent enough to have lots of choices.

At the risk of stating the obvious again, markets tend to be less effective at doing things that don't make money. Consider the problem of devastation from natural disasters: we don't see market competitors pushing and shoving each other in their eagerness to compete in providing food and shelter for flood victims, for example. It's simply not a paying proposition. Even Libertarians concede that such problems will be dealt with not by markets but by individual and collective acts of charity. But why should we assume that private charity will necessarily be more effective, reliable, and comprehensive than government approaches? It sure doesn't seem obvious to me as I glance over my United Charities Board report.

It's also important to remember that market efficiencies always operate in a limited context. The law of supply and demand sets prices very efficiently between buyer and seller, but it ignores externalities (costs or benefits in the production or use of the product which aren't assumed by either buyer or seller) which can make goods seriously underpriced or overpriced. People who rhapsodize about how effective markets are usually are only thinking about their operation within such limited contexts.

It seems to me that asking "Which is better, markets or government?" is much like asking "Which is better, sex or food?" They're both crucial parts of human societies but they don't do the same things. To assert that one is unequivocally "better at" everything is just---well, sorry, there's that overused word "silly" again.

Kimstu

P.S. to sqweels: Bootleg? But they told me it was all in the public domain! :)

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Well, actually there IS a "libertarian" society, wher the only taxes are those you "agree" too, and the same with laws. It is called "Beirut", where everything is run by armed thugs and "militias". Even "military service" is "private". "taxes" and road repairs are private, as are utilities, education, and everything else.

Lets us just start with something like animal cruelty. In a
L. society, there are no laws on what you can do with your animals, but there are "animal rescue" private groups. Sounds like what we had over a hundred years ago, when the ASPCA was first founded. You could torture & beat your animals all you wanted, but the ASPCA and others would offer to take it off your hands & rescue it. But some humans do NOT act in 'enlightened self interest", they WANT to be cruel, even if it costs them money.

And schools: some parents WANT their kids uneducated. Yes, I know it is terrible, but they do. Especially in rural areas, and before child labor laws, parents would rather earn a few $$ off their kids, rather than educate them Yes, educated kids DO earn more, but maybe they won't turn it all over to daddy. Some parents sell their kids into prostitution, too.

You see, SOME people, far too many people, are just plain ignorant mean, and will NOT act in "enlightened self interest". L...ism ignores this, and presumes a perfect world, with good, smart, but greedy people. I am out there, folks--it just ain't so. Libertarianism has never worked, and won't work. This is all just hot air, like talking about the "perfect" communist society.

[Smartass]

sqweels:

I've looked three times, and am still not sure if I spelled your name right.

Civilization requires there to be economic infrastructure, which must be paid for. The only way to do that is to force every member of society to chip in their fair share in taxes.

Okay, if you could ever reach total theoretical libertarianism, government payments would be voluntary, too. Needless to say, I'm not recommending that. I don't want the government abolished. I don't expect government to be free. However, there are very few things that government does even passingly well. And I believe it should stay out of things that it tends to only make worse. Also, government solutions always involve somebody's rights getting violated; whereas market solutions tend to be more efficient, offer more choices, and are not allowed to violate people's rights. Doesn't it make sense, then, that you want government functions to be minimal?

One community might want to have its sewer system owned by the government and built and run by government employees, while another contracts the whole thing out to private companies, but the money still has to come from tyrannically coerced payments from each one of us (not just "you").

Well, let's think about this: Some communities implement their functions in one way, othes in another. As time passes, people start to notice that the sewer system in Privatown is much cheaper than the one in Sociatown, and they decide to make theirs more like Privatown's. Thus, we have various solutions being tried, with more freedom on the community (as opposed to national) level to make decisions. Hey, this sounds a lot more libertarian than a a central-government solution. I like the way you're thinking.

At any rate, it's not just a case of money being taken from one person and given to another.

That's true. Often, money is taken from one person. About half of it is wasted, then the rest is given to another, with provisions.

We all benefit from the things we help government to pay for.

Once again, sewer systems are good things. Fire departments, in many cases, are good things. On the other hand, buying up cheese and burying it in the ground is ridiculous. Would you like it if the federal government took over the administration and staffing all fire departments in the country?

You want to spread the decisions out as much as possible: It allows for flexibility and for more personal choice. Thus, fire departments should not be provided by federal government, and in fact, neither should much else outside of national defense and maintaining the courts.

Is this logic so offensive? The individual should decide about his clothes. The family should decide about the house. The community should decide about the schools, the state should decide about any necessary "social" programs, the federal government should protect us from the bad guys.

The fact that some functions must be handled by government does not naturally lead to the government having its hands in everything, right?

A rich man may have to pay a lot more in taxes, but his customers, employees, and suppliers all benefit from roads and schools, and he benefits it turn.

And how much of his tax money do you think is actually going towards things that have benefits for him? Or, for anybody else, for that matter?


kimstu:

But government can try to arrange things so as to establish a certain minimal set of options.

Yep, it can try. And if it fails miserably, do we try to go another route, say, something that doesn't require government? Hell no. We giver more money to the government. Eventually, it'll solve all our problems if we just give it enough money.

But if you were poor, you might be having to choose, say, between food and basic education, or (if we assume that your alternative to homelessness is a job handling dangerous carcinogens) between shelter and health.

Once again: I'm not saying that these aren't valid goals. I'm saying that government won't achieve them. If you want to keep sending more and more money into the Uncle Sam machine in hopes of achieving these things, be my guest. As for me, I have decided that no amount of money in federal coffers is going to achieve these goals and I would like to try other things with my contribution.

In fact, I would like to personally be the one who's choosing whether my money should go into a college account for my daughter or into paying farmers not to grow food. I guess I'm just selfish.

You may fume about the interfering socialists who would wantonly trample on other people's rights just so that you could have both education and food, but I don't think you're going to change a lot of minds that way.

Maybe if the socialists could accomplish their goals, maybe if they didn't require more money every year in order for things not to improve, maybe I wouldn't fume. I'm not bitching about us having to pay for what we get. I'm bitching about us not getting half what we are paying for.

I think markets are indeed terrific at solving certain kinds of problems.

Okay, let's be clear. Markets don't solve problems. They don't make people rich, they don't make people poor. People do all these things. People make problems. People solve problems. Markets are the most efficient way for people to communicate their wants and values to others who can provide for them.

markets tend to be less effective at doing things that don't make money.

That's true. And to do things that practically take money out and burn it, you need government.

Consider the problem of devastation from natural disasters: we don't see market competitors pushing and shoving each other in their eagerness to compete in providing food and shelter for flood victims.

This is true. No one would pay for it--it's the government's job. Have you thought about the sheer amount of waste in government disaster relief. Now imagine a company was providing the same level of relief without the waste. You think there would be room in there for some profit?

It's simply not a paying proposition.

Why do assume that if government loses money at it, everyone will? How do you think insurance works?

But why should we assume that private charity will necessarily be more effective, reliable, and comprehensive than government approaches?

How could they be any worse?

The law of supply and demand sets prices very efficiently between buyer and seller, but it ignores externalities...

This is true. However, most of these externalities are in the form of violating someone's rights, no? Sure, there are small inefficiencies in market-based systems, however, there is no more efficient system. As for big inefficiencies, they tend to be addressed by the libertarian insistence on protecting the rights of individuals.

People who rhapsodize about how effective markets are usually are only thinking about their operation within such limited contexts.

Well, if I see any of those people, I'll be sure and slap them around.

I'm not an economist, so it would be foolish for me to try to address those issues in any meaningful way here. However, don't let my lack of knowledge in this area convince you that it is outside of libertarian thinking. If you want to know those kind of details, visit some of the libertarian sites and check them out.

They're both crucial parts of human societies but they don't do the same things.

We're agreed on that. Ultimately, you trust government a lot more than I do, and people a lot less.


Danielinthewolvesden:

Thank you. Let's make this a little more confusing by suggesting that Beirut is libertarian. That there is a government there that protects all individuals from force and fraud.

And schools: some parents WANT their kids uneducated. Yes, I know it is terrible, but they do. Especially in rural areas, and before child labor laws, parents would rather earn a few $$ off their kids, rather than educate them Yes, educated kids DO earn more, but maybe they won't turn it all over to daddy. Some parents sell their kids into prostitution, too.

And in fact, some kids never in their lives have need for trigonometry or world history. Obviously, you know better, though. Obviously, you have determined what would be a correct and moral way to bring up children.

Has it occurred to you that selling children into slavery would be somewhat of a violation of their rights?

Please, before you draw any more conclusions about libertarian based on your obvious worldly wisdom and announce them to the world, at least bother to learn what libertarianism is.

-VM

[Kimstu]

Smartass said:


I would say that, as long as you can do it without initiating force or fraud against me, you should be free to live your life and dispose of your property in support of your moral code. And I should have the same freedom. And everyone else.


But disallowing force and fraud is also imposing a moral "consensus" that conflicts with the moral codes of some individuals. Some people have no moral objection to stealing, cheating, or using violence, and are willing to take the risk of suffering those things at the hands of others. Sure, most people agree that peacefulness and honesty are good things morally, but they'd say the same about compassion and social responsibility. Why should government necessarily mandate the one and not the other? Saying "All citizens must refrain from the use of force" or "All citizens must abide by their contracts" is no less an act of moral coercion than saying "All citizens must share some of their goods with others." Imposing moral codes on individuals is just part of what societies do, and Libertarianism is not free from that.


But government can try to arrange things so as to establish a certain minimal set of options.

Yep, it can try. And if it fails miserably, do we try to go another route, say, something that doesn't require government? Hell no. We giver more money to the government. Eventually, it'll solve all our problems if we just give it enough money.


I don't agree that when it comes to solving problems, there's absolutely no middle ground between supporting bad government and ceasing to support government at all. People can also demand that government stop doing the thing that's failing miserably and try a different approach. Our laws and the people who make them are changed all the time in response to citizen demand; I've personally been involved in one or two (very small, but successful) efforts to change a government's policies. Yup, it takes a long time and a lot of work, but perhaps things that affect a lot of people in important ways shouldn't be changed at the drop of a hat. I have enough faith in people to think that they'll eventually put in the necessary effort to change the government's approach to the things they really care about.


Consider the problem of devastation from natural disasters: we don't see market competitors pushing and shoving each other in their eagerness to compete in providing food and shelter for flood victims.

This is true. No one would pay for it--it's the government's job. Have you thought about the sheer amount of waste in government disaster relief. Now imagine a company was providing the same level of relief without the waste. You think there would be room in there for some profit?

It's simply not a paying proposition.

Why do assume that if government loses money at it, everyone will? How do you think insurance works?


So according to Libertarian principles, disaster relief should be paid for by private insurance premiums? Okeydoke, let's run the numbers and see what comes out. (This is the part I always like best; guess I'm just a policy wonk at heart. :)) I did a brief search on "flood damage" and came up with the tidbits that there was $1 billion worth of damage in Florida from the 1999 hurricane season, and $6 billion worth of damage in North Carolina from one 1999 hurricane alone. Admittedly, 1999 was a bad hurricane year, but on the other hand those numbers didn't include the costs of rescue and evacuation, emergency food and shelter, etc., nor flood devastation in any other areas. Let's be very very modest in our estimates and assume that the devastation caused to individuals (leaving businesses out of the scenario) by floods could be satisfactorily handled for $5 billion per year for the entire country---including not only the costs of compensation, rescue and relief efforts, and rebuilding for the policy-holders, but necessary overhead (training and paying helicopter pilots, advertising, office staffs, etc.) and enough profits to make it a paying proposition for the insurance companies. This figure looks extremely low---I'd guess I'm off by at least half an order of magnitude---but we'll go with it as a very modest estimate.

Now, where are we going to get this money? There are about 275 million people in the US, or say one hundred million families. If every family paid $50 in flood insurance, we'd have all our costs and profits covered according to the above estimate. Is every family going to think they need even fifty dollars' worth of flood insurance? Not hardly. Well, if only one in ten families paid $500 for flood insurance annually, that would still cover it. Is every tenth family in the whole country going to take $500 out of their income every year for flood insurance, considering everything else they need to spend money on? I seriously doubt it: think of the thousands of families in each of hundreds of cities who have no realistic use for flood insurance at all, as well as the thousands of people who might actually be in danger from floods but don't know it, don't care, or are willing to take the risk. We've got a serious shortfall.

So okay, there's a terrible hurricane and a devastating flood. Even assuming the insurance companies have enough money to pay for rescuing and compensating all their policy-holders (and---*cough*---people who are quietly left to drown don't submit nasty expensive claims or file nasty inconvenient lawsuits---and in the midst of a devastating flood, who has time to notice whether the companies' helicopter pilots are acting more for the benefit of their policy-holders or their stockholders?), the comfortably rescued and compensated citizens are now cheek by jowl with a slew of starving, homeless, and penniless ones. The self-interest of this latter group has undergone a huge shift: suddenly it makes a lot more economic sense to use force and fraud on their more prudent neighbors and take their chances with the law. (Heck, some of them might start stealing just so they'd get hauled off to a nice dry jail cell.) More property loss, more non-productive social turmoil, more drains on law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

Even without rights infringements, this is a perfect example of externality problems. Take the case of Paul and Marcia Libertarian, who bought flood insurance when they moved to Riverville even though there hasn't been a flood there in seventy-five years and hardly any of their neighbors carry personal flood insurance anymore. Well, it turns out to have been a wise choice, because the river did flood this year and there's hardly a house left standing. Prudent Paul and Marcia and their family are rescued, sheltered, and compensated for their property losses: let's hear it for the efficiency of the market! What's more, their neighbors (unlike the criminal hoodlums of the previous paragraph) all remain true to the same Libertarian principles and are resolutely prepared to drown, starve, or freeze rather than entrench upon Paul and Marcia's inalienable property rights. Unfortunately, most of the survivors are now about twice as poor as dirt and can barely scratch out a subsistence living, much less contribute to the needs of the community in rebuilding roads and schools and supporting local businesses. If Paul and Marcia want a decent life for themselves and their family, they're either going to have to make a hugely inequitable investment in rebuilding (and they probably couldn't afford what it would cost anyway), or sell their house (and who will want to buy property in a dead town like Riverville now?) and move. Poor Paul and Marcia have been blindsided by a market externality: the insurance premiums they paid didn't take into account the fact that insurance compensation is much more effective when coverage is universal. They paid the insurance company a fair price for the costs of rescue and resettlement, and that's what they got; but now they're also going to have to pay a lot more to start their new life, just because their neighbors chose not to pay for the same thing. The other folks in Riverville certainly didn't violate anybody's rights by choosing not to buy flood insurance, but it sure ended up costing Paul and Marcia a bunch of money in the long run.

And we haven't even looked at the costs of dealing with earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes, all of which are going to require their own insurance premiums and all of which are going to cause huge problems for the underinsured and everyone around them. Is this ultimately better and cheaper than mandating universal contributions for disaster relief and providing universal coverage, even if it's not optimally efficient? I've seen no reason to think so, and I don't think that repeating the mantra "markets good, government bad" is going to change that.

Kimstu

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Smartass: you recommend I learn more about L,ism? How? Speak to any 2 L.ians and you get 2 diff answers. And of vourse, you respond to my cases as "the contract will take care of that" or whatever. You try to pin down a L.ian on something, then they pull some other thing out of the blue sky and say, "well, this covers that". And why the hell should ignorant, illiterate parents decide their kids are going to be illiterate & ignorant, too?

And I'd be happy to learn more about how L-ism works in the real world. Just point to the 10 best L-ian Countries out there...., OK, how about the 10 best of all time?....The 2 best?....ANY? Nope, it never has been tried, because: 1 it does not exist, L-ism has too many meanings to mean anything, and 2.Because it depends on people acting in "enlightened self interest", and people don't.

And Beirut IS a "l-ian" state, sorta. You get exactly the Gov't you want and are willing to support/contract. Of course, it is almost total anarchy, but is that not what purest L-ism is?

And then you talk about "community decisions & covenants/ contracts", and if I say I do not agree to what "the community" wants- you say MOVE to another community that HAS what you want. But if I say, well then, if you hate the USA so much, move to a better country, you say THAT is not a covenant/contract.

[jshore]

Just to jump in with a few comments on this thread...First, I think this point about externalities, already brought up by kimstu, cannot be overstated. The idea that the market magically works everything out (Adam Smith's "invisible hand") can be criticized on a number of points, but one of the most important is that it relies on certain assumptions that are sometimes way-not-true. And, in those cases, one needs something like government to set things straight.

For example, say I own a beer company in Tennessee and am polluting the river in producing my beer, thus affecting those folks living downstream...say the fishermen trying to earn their livelihood and the families who enjoy swimming in the river. If you in Wisconsin buy my beer, you will pay too little for it because neither of us is absorbing all the costs incurred in producing it...Some of it is being borne by third parties, not part of the deal. Of course, all transactions probably have some third party costs, and I am not saying all of them can be completely corrected, but when they get severe, as they do in the case of environment issues such as this, then one needs something like a government to either regulate pollution discharge or force the company to compensate the people or to pay to clean up the river, or whatever. The market ain't gonna magically take care of it! (And noting that an externality such as this is a "violation of rights" of the people living downstream and that libertarians believe in maximal rights for all and not allowing people to violate other people's rights sounds good...But I don't see how it translates into a solution. Whether you look at it in terms of violations of rights or externalities, you need some sort of collective entity such as government to solve it.)

Another question (for Smartass), where do you get the evidence that leads you to conclude that government does things so God-awful inefficiently? I hear a lot of complaining on this issue...but little in the way of real evidence. A lot of the inefficiencies that people see in government happen, sometimes to an even larger extent, in corporations. (Believe me...I work for one!) In fact, much of the savings that privatization of various services was supposed to bring have not in fact occurred (or have occurred at the cost of considerable deterioration of the services). A related example: I know a doctor in Canada (where the government provides the health insurance) who pointed out that their office of several doctors has one person who spends a fraction of her time on billing issues. He noted that in contrast, an office this size in the U.S. would have to have several people spending full time dealing with billing under our "efficient" private insurance system with its zillions of different forms, billing policies, etc!

I'm not saying that government is wonderful or that we don't have to continue to fight like the dickens to keep it accountable to us citizens, but by golly, it is OUR government, so let's work at making it work better rather than just surrendering to the seductive logic that everything will work out better if we just leave it up to the "magic of the marketplace"!

[Smartass]

Kimstu:

Imposing moral codes on individuals is just part of what societies do, and Libertarianism is not free from that.

Agreed. The libertarian view of this is that it is a necessary evil. As such, it should be minimized. The purpose of libertarianism is to have government impose morality on its citizens as little as possible and to leave as much leeway as possible for people to live according to their own moral codes.

People often observe that government does restrict some freedom and does cost a certain amount of money. This, in and of itself, does not justify any restriction of rights or level of taxation. Libertarians try to draw the line as close to the freedom side of the argument as possible.

Yup, it takes a long time and a lot of work, but perhaps things that affect a lot of people in important ways shouldn't be changed at the drop of a hat.

What if the affect is to hurt a lot of people? You want to delay stopping this harm? Why?

Also, you seem to be thinking from the paradigm that only one solution is correct, or that multiple solutions cannot be attempted at the same time. If solutions are not implemented centrally, multiple approaches can be attempted simultaneously.

I have enough faith in people to think that they'll eventually put in the necessary effort to change the government's approach to the things they really care about.

I have enough faith in people to think that they'll eventually put in the necessary effort to achieve those goals that they really care about. Libertarianism attempts to make this easier. Having to act through government makes it more difficult.

So according to Libertarian principles, disaster relief should be paid for by private insurance premiums?

No. Libertarianism does not prescribe solutions in advance. According to libertarian principles, disaster relief should not be a governmental function. Or in those cases where it must be, it should not be a federal function. Insurance is an example of how unexpected events are dealt with without calling on government. It is not presented as the one solution to all such problems.

Central government thinking leads people to ask, "How will this problem be solved? How will that problem be solved?" Since libertarians do not expect each problem to have one predictable solution, we cannot answer the question to your satisfaction. We say that in a libertarian context, the people are allowed to come up with solutions as they see fit, that market rules will dictate that competing solutions will tend to become increasingly effective and efficient. And then you say, "How would this system solve x problem?" We don't know. We only know the solutions that come to mind for each of us. Chances are, someone else will think of a better solution. Whoever has the best solution will likely be most successful in the market.

Let's consider your flooding example. Flood insurance is generally provided by the government instead of private insurers. Why is this? As it turns out, some areas are prone to frequent flooding; others are not. Insurers charge higher premiums based on the expectations of disaster. For those who need flood insurance, the premiums would be too expensive to be affordable. So, government has stepped in and subsidized flood insurance.

Now, if you decide to live in a flood-prone area, are you taking more or less risk than someone who decides to live in an area that is not flood-prone? Does it make sense that those who do not live in a flood-prone area should assume part of the risk for those who choose to? This is, after all, the result of federally-subsidized flood insurance. If you brush your teeth daily, and I do weekly, does it make sense that you should have to help pay for my dental bills?

In terms of the yearly flood damage. Have you considered how much of that damage is repeat damage? That is to say, how many of the people whose houses are rebuilt are living in a place where floods are expected every few years? By subsidizing flood insurance, the government has made it financially feasible for people to live in a place where their houses will be destroyed every 10 or 15 years and to just rebuild each time. If they had to bear a proportionate amount of the risk, they probably would not choose to build their houses in these kinds of places.

If we did not have so many people continually rebuilding houses in flood plains, do you think the need for disaster relief would go up or down? Do you disagree that people are more likely to take unreasonable risks if they don't have to pay the consequences?

Even without rights infringements, this is a perfect example of externality problems.

I think that discussions of externality problems are interesting, but this is not an example of one. What you are describing is artificial distribution of risk. Questions of real externality issues are complicated and difficult to evaluate under any governmental paradigm. Your desire to evaluate them according to your own paradigm does not lead to the conclusion that your paradigm is better.

Is this ultimately better and cheaper than mandating universal contributions for disaster relief and providing universal coverage, even if it's not optimally efficient? I've seen no reason to think so, and I don't think that repeating the mantra "markets good, government bad" is going to change that.

We have no way of knowing what is optimally efficient. However, when your policies lead directly to people taking unreasonable risks, and total disaster trending upward, I would say that the policies are ultimately doing more harm than good.


Danielinthewolvesden:

Speak to any 2 L.ians and you get 2 diff answers.

This isn't surprising. Libertarianism doesn't claim to have the answers. We believe that restraining government allows more potential solutions to surface and to be implemented simultaneously. Since markets tend to lead to continuous improvements in efficiency and efficacy, we expect that over time solutions will become better and better. However, when you ask an individual what the solution to a problem is, all he can give you is the solution he imagines. He fully expects someone else to have alternate solutions that may be better.

And why the hell should ignorant, illiterate parents decide their kids are going to be illiterate & ignorant, too?

Why should you decide? Why does the fact that you think ignorance and illiteracy are unacceptable mean that everyone must think the same way?

Just point to the 10 best L-ian Countries out there...., OK, how about the 10 best of all time?

I thought I was the SmartAss. Look at it like this, all the alternative plans being posited as better than libertarianism are based on some degree of socialism. Libertarianism is practically opposite to socialism. How about if you point out the 10 best socialist countries out there? Of all time?

By many measure of success, the U.S. is more successful than other countries. What is the difference between the U.S. and, say, Germany? Well, Germany is more socialist, the U.S. more libertarian. Is it so surprising that we think libertarianism is the correct direction to go in?

And Beirut IS a "l-ian" state, sorta. You get exactly the Gov't you want and are willing to support/contract. Of course, it is almost total anarchy, but is that not what purest L-ism is?

No. Libertarianism is based on the idea of having a government which protects the rights of all citizens equally. Libertarians do not support anarchy. The primary objection to libertarianism is that we think that protecting individual rights is the only legitimate function of government.

And then you talk about "community decisions & covenants/ contracts", and if I say I do not agree to what "the community" wants- you say MOVE to another community that HAS what you want. But if I say, well then, if you hate the USA so much, move to a better country, you say THAT is not a covenant/contract.

My libertarianism may not be pure enough to approach this question correctly, but I will give you my personal view. Decision-making should be as decentralized as possible, with primacy going to the individual. Some things cannot be accomplished on an individual level. However, these things should not be moved higher up the governmental hierarchy than is absolutely necessary. Thus, I should decide what religion to practice or not practice. My family should make home-buying decisions. My community should decide school-related issues, etc.

Look at it like this: If you live in a community of 100, a state of 10,000, and a country of 1,000,000, (assuming you have one vote) then you have much more relative influence on decisions at the community level, less at a state level, and practically none at a national level. Doesn't it make sense then to have decisions that affect your life as close to the community level and as far from the national level as possible?


jshore:

...say I own a beer company in Tennessee...

You're example addresses true externalities. Libertarians do not claim that government should never get involved in such situations. The externailities you describe involve violations of others' rights. As such, the government should hold you responsible for the damage. Thus, you should pay the price for harming others. Libertarians would expect this to be handled on a case-by-case basis based on the situation and the nature of the violations. We do not support preemptive punishments by means of massive regulation. In other words, we prefer to wait until you have hurt someone before we punish you. On the other hand, if you do hurt someone, we expect you to be punished and to be required to make amends.

Whether you look at it in terms of violations of rights or externalities, you need some sort of collective entity such as government to solve it.

If the externalities do not involve rights violations, then there's no problem to solve, is there? If it does involve rights violations, then of course you need some sort of government to address it. We are not anarchists. But we don't believe massive regulatory agencies are particularly good solutions. And we don't believe in punishing people who have violated no one's rights.

Another question (for Smartass), where do you get the evidence that leads you to conclude that government does things so God-awful inefficiently? I hear a lot of complaining on this issue...but little in the way of real evidence. A lot of the inefficiencies that people see in government happen, sometimes to an even larger extent, in corporations.

An excellent example. The difference? Corporations must compete with other corporations. Thus, if your corporation is more inefficient than mine, then I will be more successful. Over time, we will both become increasing efficient because of our desire to compete successfully, with or without government intervention. On the other hand, government has no competition, and thus no incentive to be more efficient.

In fact, much of the savings that privatization of various services was supposed to bring have not in fact occurred (or have occurred at the cost of considerable deterioration of the services).

If privatization involves granting a monopoly to some company, then nothing is gained. On the other hand, if competition is not actively prevented, then it will develop over time and improvements will result. Obviously, this won't happen overnight.

He noted that in contrast, an office this size in the U.S. would have to have several people spending full time dealing with billing under our "efficient" private insurance system with its zillions of different forms, billing policies, etc!

Have you thought about how much of this paperwork is the result of government regulation of the industry?

I'm not saying that government is wonderful or that we don't have to continue to fight like the dickens to keep it accountable to us citizens, but by golly, it is OUR government, so let's work at making it work better rather than just surrendering to the seductive logic that everything will work out better if we just leave it up to the "magic of the marketplace"!

I agree that we should work to make our government better. In my opinion, the way to improve it is to reduce the government to its Constitutional limits and return more power to individuals, who can achieve their goals because of the "magic" of the free market.

-VM

[Kimstu]

Smartass said:


If solutions are not implemented centrally, multiple approaches can be attempted simultaneously.


Of course, even if some solutions are implemented centrally, multiple approaches can still be attempted (as with the combination of private insurance and federal disaster relief). Surely you don't imagine that anyone here is supporting a Soviet-style marketless economy with total centralized control? No way; we merely don't agree with your assumption that markets operating alone will always produce better solutions than a combination of markets and government.


So according to Libertarian principles, disaster relief should be paid for by private insurance premiums?

No. Libertarianism does not prescribe solutions in advance. According to libertarian principles, disaster relief should not be a governmental function. Or in those cases where it must be, it should not be a federal function. Insurance is an example of how unexpected events are dealt with without calling on government. It is not presented as the one solution to all such problems. ...

In terms of the yearly flood damage. Have you considered how much of that damage is repeat damage? That is to say, how many of the people whose houses are rebuilt are living in a place where floods are expected every few years? By subsidizing flood insurance, the government has made it financially feasible for people to live in a place where their houses will be destroyed every 10 or 15 years and to just rebuild each time. If they had to bear a proportionate amount of the risk, they probably would not choose to build their houses in these kinds of places.


Hey, I'm just trying to work with what you give me. I started this by pointing out that the government largely handles disaster relief because large-scale comprehensive disaster relief is so expensive that it's not a paying proposition for corporations. You replied that it might be made profitable if government stopped messing with it, and muttered something about insurance. I argued (admittedly from a small amount of data, but I tried hard to compensate for that by understating the costs of the problem) that it's completely unrealistic to project that the same amount of relief that the government now provides would be covered solely by voluntary contributions to for-profit insurance companies. You now seem to be saying, "Well, after a few good floods people will learn their lesson so the costs will go down. Besides, other unspecified solutions will emerge."

Gosh, how reassuring. However, during the generations that people are learning that lesson (assuming you can really count on ever thoroughly educating all successive generations of a population not to take dangerous risks), probably thousands of flood victims will die, be reduced to poverty, or turn to crime. It seems to me that your Libertaria is very likely to look even more like a police state (with large numbers of law enforcement officials required to protect the persons and properties of wealthy citizens against the desperate rabble) than what we've got now.


Now, if you decide to live in a flood-prone area, are you taking more or less risk than someone who decides to live in an area that is not flood-prone? Does it make sense that those who do not live in a flood-prone area should assume part of the risk for those who choose to? This is, after all, the result of federally-subsidized flood insurance. If you brush your teeth daily, and I do weekly, does it make sense that you should have to help pay for my dental bills?


Of course, if we have the same private dental insurance company, that's exactly what I do; the actual cost of my dental care is less than the premiums I pay while the actual cost of yours is higher, so I am indeed helping pay for your new teeth. Overall, I think that's a pretty good way to handle many of a society's needs; and I don't think it's an intolerable infringement of anyone's rights to have some of that sharing built into a universal social contract, instead of requiring individuals to maintain hundreds or thousands of separate voluntary contracts to attain the same ends.


Even without rights infringements, this [privatized disaster relief] is a perfect example of externality problems.

I think that discussions of externality problems are interesting, but this is not an example of one. What you are describing is artificial distribution of risk. Questions of real externality issues are complicated and difficult to evaluate under any governmental paradigm.


Huh? What I just described was a case where the relationship between the price and the true value of a good was changed by a factor not taken into account during the price-setting: namely, whether or not other people also purchased the good. I have seen similar situations described by economists as "network externalities" (http://economics.about.com/money/economics/library/weekly/aa030198.htm): e.g., if you buy a telephone, your purchase becomes more valuable to you if other people also buy one, because a telephone's more useful if lots of people have them. Would you be kind enough to explain to me slowly and carefully why my example of private flood insurance that becomes less valuable when very few other people buy it is not an equally valid example of a network externality?


jshore said: [A Canadian doctor] noted that in contrast, an office this size in the U.S. would have to have several people spending full time dealing with billing under our "efficient" private insurance system with its zillions of different forms, billing policies, etc!

Have you thought about how much of this paperwork is the result of government regulation of the industry?


Okay, let me get this straight. jshore points out a situation in which a government solution is actually more efficient and inexpensive than a market one...and you conclude that the reason has to be that the market's being interfered with by the government?! Wow. And I thought Libertarians were supposed to be open-minded.

Well, I'm starting to get the feeling I'm repeating myself, and causing other people to do the same. And since some posters apparently smarter and better-informed than I have shown up arguing some of the same positions, I think I'll bow out now and save the bandwidth for them and those who want to debate them. I'll still look forward to learning more from reading the thread while it lasts.

Before leaving, though, it behooves me to thank the posters who took time and trouble to answer my questions, particularly Smartass, Libertarian, and Gilligan. I may not be convinced, but I'm certainly better-educated. In case anybody's interested, here are some of the conclusions I've come to in the course of this debate:

"Freedom" perhaps has a more powerful emotional appeal in the abstract than the concrete. Nobody wants to be seen as an enemy of freedom or in favor of restricting freedom, but as a society we are so used to having a great deal of freedom that we've come to interpret it as meaning the absence of any coercion rather than as an alternative to de facto powerlessness. It's ironic that we should think of starving people as being more free than wealthy people who are legally prohibited from letting others starve, but that's what the emotional connotations of "freedom" mean to us.

Wealth is not finite, but people are. When we look at all the countless varieties of diet soda and electronic toys available in shopping malls, it seems very reasonable to assume that no matter what we ask for, somebody will eventually come along to sell it. We forget that there isn't actually an infinite number of entrepreneurs to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by our societal needs, and that entrepreneurs will naturally compete for opportunities to make higher profits and ignore opportunities for lower ones. Sure, there may be some profit to be made by opening a second convenience store in an inner-city neighborhood to undercut the monopolistic prices of the store that currently dominates that market; but if there's a bigger profit to be made in selling a new sex toy or microbrewed beer to affluent consumers, that first market niche can remain unfilled for a very long time.

Government plays a much more vital and beneficial role in society than I generally realize. Antigovernment rhetoric is such a commonplace throughout our society that (like most of us, probably) I'm used to dismissing government as primarily a source of problems. It isn't till I start to explore issues such as the ones raised in this debate that I discover the surprising number of valuable effects of governmental institutions. I was particularly surprised to see how many of the "market successes" touted by Libertarians, in areas such as consumer movements and information technology, rely on federal and international efforts. I formerly had no idea, for example, of the centrality of EPA research in the anti-styrofoam campaign discussed in some earlier posts, nor of the important role played by the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Information Technology Laboratory (http://www.itl.nist.gov/aboutitl.htm) and the FCC (http://www.fcc.gov/) in setting technological standards. (Those of us who remember the more "libertarian" days of computer technology know that incompatibility was a much bigger problem back then; and of course the famously "libertarian" Internet originated in the Department of Defense!) Markets are tremendously efficient in some ways but tremendously inefficient in others, particularly in their readiness to ignore a long-term advantage in favor of a short-term one; there's a lot to be said for having processes at the federal level to counter that tendency.

Much more citizen effort is needed to fix the many failures of government. All those nice benefits of large-scale coordination tend to get overlooked beside the many glaring inefficiencies and waste of the governmental process. Sure, this is partly because everybody enjoys complaining more than complimenting, but mostly it's because the problems are real, severe, and frustrating. Almost none of us are doing as much as we should to fulfill our citizenship responsibilities of learning, teaching, and voting about important issues and the best ways to handle them. (And don't complain that you just don't have the time: do you think you'll have the time to fill out two hundred insurance forms annually, do background checks on the dozen companies offering to sell you their food safety inspection service, attend the meetings of the town sewage and air quality and traffic signal and school construction committees, and read the prospectuses of three hundred basic research nonprofits explaining why their projects will be vital to your children's future? You'll have to, if government's not there to handle any of those functions.) Yes, it's absurd to think that we can really have a successful large and complex society without a good deal of centralized control; but Libertarians are actually doing us a favor by galvanizing us to realize what the government does well and fix what it does badly. Don't know where to begin? Start out by taking a look at Project Vote Smart (http://www.vote-smart.org/) or the League of Women Voters (http://www.lwv.org/) and identify issues or candidacies that seem particularly important to you. Now get out there and make a difference!

Kimstu
"oh-h, say can you SEEEEE..." [fade out on background of waving flags]

[Smartass]

Kimstu:

You now seem to be saying, "Well, after a few good floods people will learn their lesson so the costs will go down. Besides, other unspecified solutions will emerge."

You're almost at the core of how markets work. If solutions are wanted, then they will emerge. Markets will meet wants or needs that people are willing to pay for. Thus, if people want protection from disaster and are willing to pay for it, then the markets will offer various ways of achieving this protection.

Also, if people want to care for the poor, markets will produce solutions. This freedom to experiment with various solution strategies and to have various solutions attempted at once, in competition with each other, is the strength of free markets. It is the reason why, when you go to buy a TV, you have lots of choices rather than just one or two. It is funny to me that you think of this strength as a weakness. Your general contention is that there are some things that government just does better. I am certainly unconvinced of that.

However, during the generations that people are learning that lesson (assuming you can really count on ever thoroughly educating all successive generations of a population not to take dangerous risks), probably thousands of flood victims will die, be reduced to poverty, or turn to crime.

And people accuse me of being apocalyptic. You are never going to understand libertarianism until you stop thinking of options as being mutually exclusive. This is only true of government solutions. Market solutions are able to be more fine-grained. Thus, there may be some areas that are just to risky to build houses. Others are a little risky. Still others are in the middle. If risks are small, I would expect standard insurance to cover disasters. If risks are large, I would expect few people to live there. If risks are in the middle, I would expect some sort hybrid solution, depending on what rewards come with those risks.

Of course, if we have the same private dental insurance company, that's exactly what I do...

With a big difference. There are several competing companies offering this kind of insurance. This means that there is competition and choice. You are not required to have dental insurance.

I don't think it's an intolerable infringement of anyone's rights to have some of that sharing built into a universal social contract...

I do. We have differing opinions. The advantage of my position is that it doesn't place any legal requirements on you. The problem with your position is that it does place requirements on me.

...instead of requiring individuals to maintain hundreds or thousands of separate voluntary contracts to attain the same ends.

If you don't agree, that's fine. But there's no need to be ridiculous. I cannot believe you honestly think that this is what libertarianism is about.

Remember: Markets increase efficiency, not decrease it.

It is government functions that result in endless paperwork.

What I just described was a case where the relationship between the price and the true value of a good was changed by a factor not taken into account during the price-setting: namely, whether or not other people also purchased the good.

But this factor is taken into account in price-setting. That is how insurance works. If it were not taken into account, insurance companies would not be able to stay in business. This is why non-federally subsidized flood insurance is so expensive in flood-prone areas.

if you buy a telephone, your purchase becomes more valuable to you if other people also buy one, because a telephone's more useful if lots of people have them.

Insurance is not more useful based on how many people carry it. It's less expensive based on how many other people carry it.

Okay, let me get this straight. jshore points out a situation in which a government solution is actually more efficient and inexpensive than a market one...and you conclude that the reason has to be that the market's being interfered with by the government?![Emphasis added]

I did not conclude anything. The point is this: You cannot point to something as being a valid example of markets at work when it is that heavily interfered with by the government. There are other problems with this comparison--I stuck with the simplest one.

Sure, there may be some profit to be made by opening a second convenience store in an inner-city neighborhood to undercut the monopolistic prices of the store that currently dominates that market; but if there's a bigger profit to be made in selling a new sex toy or microbrewed beer to affluent consumers, that first market niche can remain unfilled for a very long time.

The key factor in markets is not profit; it is competition. Do you make decisions based solely on profits? Or do you make them based on the sum of your values? Market participants are not profit-seeking robots; they are people--in fact, you are one of them. Your scenario assumes that no one makes a decision based on anything other than profit. If that were true, then a libertarian society would indeed be the hell that liberals often describe. But then again, if that were true, so would any other society.

That is why I feel comfortable saying that in a libertarian society, people would not be left to starve. There will always be people who are more interested in doing good than in achieving riches. It is possible in a libertarian society to start a company solely for the purpose of helping the poor, and for that company to never earn a profit, if that is not what the owner is interested in. The key advantage, as opposed to the central government model, is that it is possible to have a bunch of companies like this, all with different ideas about how to solve the problem. In this way, there is competition and choice.

I formerly had no idea, for example, of the centrality of EPA research in the anti-styrofoam campaign discussed in some earlier posts, nor of the important role played by the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Information Technology Laboratory and the FCC in setting technological standards.

Libertarians do not maintain that organizations of this type are evil on their face. Without government funding, such organizations would still exist as necessary, and probably would not be so prone to produce research that is politically slanted.

Markets are tremendously efficient in some ways but tremendously inefficient in others, particularly in their readiness to ignore a long-term advantage in favor of a short-term one...

This is not a function of markets, but of people. Markets care not for long- or short-term advantages. What you are actually saying is that people often ignore long-term advanatages in favor of short-terms ones, and we need parents...I mean, government...to protect us from our short-sightedness.

I guess we should all consider ourselves lucky to have people like you who are willing to violate our rights in order to keep us from making bad decisions.

And don't complain that you just don't have the time: do you think you'll have the time to fill out two hundred insurance forms annually, do background checks on the dozen companies offering to sell you their food safety inspection service, attend the meetings of the town sewage and air quality and traffic signal and school construction committees, and read the prospectuses of three hundred basic research nonprofits explaining why their projects will be vital to your children's future? You'll have to, if government's not there to handle any of those functions.

That may be the most ridiculous statement I've ever seen anyone make with respect to libertarianism. If markets were that inefficient, nothing would ever work.

Libertarians are actually doing us a favor by galvanizing us to realize what the government does well and fix what it does badly.

Now you're talking. How 'bout not having governments do what they do badly?

And by the way, I don't appreciate the implication that libertarian ideas are un-American. I seriously doubt you are more patriotic toward the USA than I am.

-VM

[Kimstu]

And by the way, I don't appreciate the implication that libertarian ideas are un-American. I seriously doubt you are more patriotic toward the USA than I am.


Sorry for the misunderstanding Smartass, I was just poking a little fun at my own civics-class exhortations (which I still sincerely mean, however! :)). I did not intend to imply that you don't love your country.

Kimstu

[Smartass]

Well...okay, then.

-VM