Laws are few, the government is small, there are no retraints on business and industry.
Let’s further assume that, as with all laissez faire economies, the economy of our society has its ups and downs. At some point, the economy takes a serious downturn. The society finds itself in the throes of a depression.
The majority of members of this society are now either out of work, or are barely scraping by. Now they look around and see that there is an uneven distribution of wealth in the nation. They have little or none, but there seem to be industrialists and bankers with more than their share.
“Hmmmm…” says this majority, “Maybe we should elect a politician who promises to re-distribute this wealth through some form of taxation. Maybe we need to enact some laws which prevent wealth from accumulating quite so unevenly…”
And so, the libertarian experiment ends, the moment the downtrodden majority figures out that they can vote their way into the pocketbooks of the wealthy.
Isn’t this more or less the way our present system of regulation and taxation came into being? Haven’t we already tried a laissez faire approach, and didn’t it fail?
Isn’t libertarianism (like communism) fundamentally un-democratic? If not, what is the response when a majority decides that taxation and regulation are a good idea?
Yes, you do: even more quiet, polite, and comfortable than Canada, whose quietness, politeness, and comfort has been disrupted over the last few years by certain individuals who’ve decided to turn us into the US so they can get rich.
Presumably they would have structural impediments in place to prevent a simple majority from overturning the fundamental libertarian principles, much like US society embeds certain protections and rights in the Constitution.
<shrugs> With structural impediments (which work, as we know from our own history), Libertarianism would not fall at the first crisis, which I interpreted as spoke-'s point.
As to whether it would survive on a longer term, it really depends on what you mean by “survive”. In its ‘pure’ state, almost certainly not. No political theory survives long in its pure state before being tweaked to fit the complicated situations of ordinary reality and the limited intelligence of human beings.
As to whether it would remain recognizably libertarian, well, surprisingly bizarre systems of government have survived in recognizable forms for astonishingly long periods of time. So who knows?
My gut feeling says that it probably wouldn’t get off the ground in the first place. I don’t see the existing libertarians banding together in one place and creating a libertarian community to implement their ideas at a local level.
As a veteran of alternative lifestyles, I doubt they could keep such a group together very long anyway.
He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’
Well, so far, we have 17 amendments to our own constitution, not including the Bill of Rights. Obviously, it ain’t that hard to amend the Constitution. I think an economic crisis would provide sufficient impetus.
If you are suggesting that libertarians might have in place even more rigid structural impediments to changing the Constitution, then I would respond by saying that they would then have created a formula for revolution.
The majority, finding themselves shut out economically and politically, would respond violently. Do you dispute this point?
It sounds to me like you are pointing out the failures of a pure democracy, not of libertarianism.
Mob rule is not a feature of libertariansim.
The long term effect of the people voting themselves a pay raise on the backs of the wealthy is to drive the wealthy away.
Once you start a protected class that only takes and doesn’t contribute to taxes, they will continue to grow in numbers until their demands overwhelm the decreasing numbers of taxpayers.
Then the system collapses and a once great nation moves backwards instead of forwards.
If this is really a libertarian government you are talking about, its only function is to protect its citizens from the coercion, from each other or from without. How could this government possibly permit its citizens to vote that it is okay to coerce each other in the form of taxation? In other words, to permit what its very function is to prevent?
Now if a subset of these citizens decide to put together a system in which they all agree to pay taxes to support the poor (or whatever cause they want to support), and if they decide to abide by the decisions of a group that will be chosen by a majority vote, then that’s fine…as long as those decisions only affect the subset and not everyone. If the libertarian government permitted this subset to coerce those who are not part of it, then it simply isn’t a libertarian government.
This subset could became so large that it could overthrow the libertarian government, but I don’t think this means a failure of libertarianism, just of this one particular government. Any government can be overthrown; this doesn’t mean a failure of the concept of government itself.
Libertarianism isn’t a form of government. It is a context for government, much like “Divine Right”. You can have monarchy under Divine Right; you can have theocracy; you can have military dictatorship. The failure of those individuals governments would say nothing about the practicality of the context.
I object to Libertarianism because I feel as a context it will lead to abuses of those without capital just as Divine Right has inevtiably led to oppression of religious minorities.
A so-called “Libertarian” government would fail to work because it fails to recognize the fundamental rights of people. “Libertarianism” arbitrarily outlaws fraud and deception, even though it should be obvious to everyone that the natural forces of the market would weed out deceptive advertisers, and that private watchdog groups would arise in a natural reaction to widespread fraud. The spectre of fraud so often brought up by “Libertarians” is nothing but a red herring. There is no empirical evidence that in a truly laissez-faire economy that fraud would not be controlled by natural market forces. The oppressive government advocated by “Libertarians” should be abhorrent to everyone, since it stomps all over the innate rights of people.
Why can’t peaceful people (both honest and dishonest alike) be allowed to go about their business without the oppressive, coercive hand of government intruding on their lives? “Libertarianism” relegates dishonest people to the status of second-class citizens. If the people in question were a religious or ethnic minority then we would all denounce “Libertarianism” as the evil system it is.
Market forces will also select against those who are not peaceful. Anyone that bullies those around them - any company that attempts to enslave a market through brute force will soon find that all the customers have gone to other venues - that no other businesses will trade with them any longer - the individuals will be unable to find employment. No one wants to work with, or do business with someone that hurts other people!
And yet these so called defenders of liberty wish to create an army - a gigantic, expensive, unwieldy institution whose sole purpose is to fight violence with violence, which as everyone knows only leads to more violence.
Right. And what I’m saying is that a democratic/republican (small ‘d’ and small ‘r’) government, within the context of libertarianism, would very soon decide that libertarianism has to go. Libertarianism, taken to its logical conclusion, is fundamentally hostile to the concepts of “democracy” and “republic”, because to maintain such a “context”, you would have to violate the will of the majority.
My point is that, in the midst of an economic crisis, the majority of citizens would be likely to elect politicians who promised to change the premise of non-coercion, to the extent required to re-distribute wealth, and that the libertarian experiment would thus come to an end.
Are you saying that the principle of non-coercion could not be rescinded by a democratically elected majority (through a constitutional amendment if necessary)? If so, then I am saying that a government which is rigidly unresponsive to the will of a majority of its citizens will soon find itself overthrown.
Sort of. I think America has only been slowly moving towards this until right about now.
The 90’s have seen a record amount of taxes taken. We are also fast approaching a tax system where over 50% of the population does not pay taxes.
What is the motivation not to raise taxes and institute government hand-out programs when you only receive?
Notice I said long-term effects. If this trend doesn’t reverse itself soon, I think it will eventually socialize America to the point where we no longer recognize individual rights anymore.
Of course the flaw in the argument is that successive generations would not necessarily decide that that democracy was for them, and opt out - especially if they were the rich and having their money voted away.
If it were a pure Libertarian society, then one person signing up for a democracy for life would not say anything as to what his children (and successors) decide to do.
Therefore voting yourself into their pocketbooks would only ensure that the next generation of rich people would not want to have anything to do with your government.
The essence of the libertarian government is that its citizens are volunteers and are free to leave its governance. If a majority of these citizens want to impose a taxation system, then they are free to form their own government to do so; again, as long as only those who want to participate are included. This choice exists within the context of libertarianism. A constitution that permits these citizens, majority or not, to impose this government on those who don’t want it, is simply not a libertarian one. It doesn’t matter whether the government is elected or not. So in this sense, this particular lib government is unresponsive to its citizens. But they don’t have to overthrow it, they can simply leave it. Not: leave the country, leave their property, etc., but leave the governance without penalty.
You are saying the majority want to tax everyone, not just those who agree to be taxed. This is saying they want to tax people who are not under their jurisdiction, whether or not they live in the same “nation” or city, or block. To do so, they would in fact have to overthrow, or “conquer” the libertarian government. They may be able to do so. This is not the failure of libertarianism, but the failure of one particular libertarian government. I think it is similar to this case: Nation X is a moderately socialist democracy. Due to some recent hardships (economics, war) the majority of its citizens vote to put in place a permanent military dictatorship. Does this mean that “democracy” doesn’t work? No, just that this one failed.