O.K.-I can see that. How stable an outcome would it be, considering human nature and the whole of past history? What stops neighbors from combining forces, neighborhoods from forming towns, towns selecting(electing) people to handle the affairs they don’t have time for in their busy lives, these selected(elected) people coming up with a way to standardize contracts to benefit the town they represent, etc. etc.
What stops Libertainia from choking on it’s own freedom?
Nothing. Most of us are saying that we don’t think Libertarianism is a stable system in its pure form. I think it’s been said quite a few times in this very thread.
Would you like us to write that 100 times on the blackboard? 
How stable, as in how likely to remain libertarian? Not very. Overcoming the problem of diffuse costs and concentrated benefits, to name just one pitfall, would require a level of political engagement and ideological commitment that’s probably well beyond what your standard group of human beings possesses.
That said, if the form of government was one that was resistant to lobbying by special interests*, and the general population was libertarian, I could see it enduring, at least for a few generations, if people liked the outcome as much as they liked the theory.
- Such as a direct democracy, or a representative democracy with a popular vote to confirm or reject the passage of a law (similar to the presidential veto), a Constitutional prohibition on omnibus bills & riders, various restrictions on campaign expenditures and contributions that most libertarians would reject, and so on.
As a result, I’m unconcerned with a Libertopia. I focus on specific aspects of my state, local, and federal governments that I view as ripe for reform along libertarian lines.
Nothing except the citizens themselves, and the form of government through which they express their will. Libertarianism means rejecting the use of the coercive power of government to one’s own advantage; rejecting the other guy’s attempts at doing so are easy, foreswearing your own attempts is more difficult. Everybody has an incentive to use whatever means exist to advance their own interests, after all.
No, sorry, this is analogy fail. I didn’t ask a bizarre question about tasting colors or the Falconist religion. I asked a question about employees forming a union and the employer not liking it. If you think that’s some fantasy scenario, you’re out of touch with the real world. And if your political ideology can’t handle that situation then it reflects poorly on your ideology.
The Libertarians principle of voluntary association says that the employer can’t physically coerce them to not join a union. He can’t beat them or shoot them. He can’t rape their wives or torture their children.
But there is no reason (from Libertarian principles) that he can’t fire them. If he couldn’t, you’re basically saying he can’t shut his factory down and decide to go out of business. Or he can’t scale his business back and fire some of them.
You proposed a scenario in which you claimed the right to voluntary assembly was being violated. It wasn’t, in fact, being violated. I wrote an analogous scenario in which a right was being asserted, but not actually violated. I see that it didn’t help, though. Oh well.
And of he can’t fire them, there goes the freedom of association. The workers are free to associate with whomever they want, but the businessman isn’t. The libertarian notion would be voluntary associations, that must be consented to by all parties concerned.
And they aren’t stopped from forming their union, either. They can form whatever union they want, but that doesn’t mean someone has to employ them.
If you attest that your motives are more than sniping at libertarianism, I’ll take you at your word and drop any discussion along those lines.
Many people have been explaining libertarian ideals throughout this thread. No one expects to convince everyone that a particular way of thinking or belief system is better than all others. The goal is to explain it and persuade those who are persuadable. You certainly aren’t obligated to agree with the tenets of the libertarian ideal. The issue that I and others have raised is that what you are disagreeing with are not ideas that self identified libertarians hold.
Imagine if I said, man I really hate Republicans, they want to enslave all brown people. You say, Republicans don’t want to do that. And then I get all huffy that you can’t accept that I disagree with you about Republicans! That’s what you’ve done.
If you really don’t believe this, I suggest you re-read the posts by those that you disagree with in the most generous way possible. Each one has attempted to explain and clarify both broad principles and specific nuance. Really. You have a crowd full of people telling you that you are missing the message. Consider that if everyone is telling you that you are not getting it, maybe they are right. Not that you have to agree with libertarianism, just that you have fundamentally misunderstood the position itself. At least understand what it is, then disagree with it on the merits.
That would be a great thread!
I think the key difference is the way that the term is defined, and to what lengths those who support libertarian ideals would go to support it. A broad way to define the term could be one that supports the Non Aggression Principle. I dont agree with all of this, and I doubt there is a unifying idea that all people who support libertarian ideals would agree with, but this is a decent primer.
Another way that the ideals are significantly different in my view is that maximizing individual liberty is the goal itself. The results of such liberty is important, but secondary to enjoying that liberty. This is an idea that is very different than what I would consider outcome based goals of most progressives.
This is an area that I think we are not in alignment. I don’t think that guns are just another tool like a screwdriver and thus need to specific protection. Self defense is a fundamental right that should be protected alongside other fundamental rights like speech and voting. I’m with you on very tough penalties - as long as the violations are actual violent crimes. This would preclude stupid stuff like magazine bans and prohibiting a certain color of firearm. Since this isn’t a gun thread I’ll leave it at that.
These two are not analogous. The reason environmental issues presents an exteranality is because legal behavior can have an impact on others where the costs are not borne by the one causing the issue. Guns are completely different in that legal use and ownership of guns can never impose a cost on others (defensive use of firearms that wound or kill others is excepted, since self defense is legal by definition)
I can’t claim to know all the changes that would need to be made to qualify as a libertarian ideal. **John **mentioned some already which I agree with. I’m also not very good at crafting legal language, so here’s some of the changes I would support through constitutional amendment (and making amendments overall more difficult) if necessary:
[ul]
[li]Prohibit the regulation of commerce other than areas that affect fraud and externalities.[/li][li]No more illegal drugs[/li][li]Much lower taxes[/li][li]Much lower governmental services[/li][li]Replace education funding with voucher based system[/li][li]Essentially a limit on government to essential duties, defense, infrastructure, law enforcement.[/li][/ul]
The way you framed the question was nonsensical. If you keep refusing to understand that, then it reflects poorly on you.
Since use of guns is not purely defensive, widespread ownership of guns can impose a cost on others, as the US finds out quite regularly. It is thus very analogous to other externalities.
Really? The only form of coercion is physical violence? You can apply any other form of pressure or intimidation on a person and it doesn’t count as coercion?
That seems like a pretty ridiculous notion to me.
I think you’re missing the point. Ownership and possession is never going to impose a cost on others. If someone does commit a crime, that should be penalized harshly. Restricting possession of any object that hurts no one is inconsistent with libertarian ideals, IMO.
So which is better? A freedom you have in theory or a freedom you have in reality? Suppose one person is 100% free in theory and another person is 90% free in reality - who is freer?
Saying you’re absolutely free to form a union but you won’t have a job if you do is theoretical freedom. Saying you have some rights to form a union and to keep your job if you do is actual freedom.
Anyone who thinks theoretical freedom is better than actual freedom is a fool. Or a libertarian.
I’m not missing the point. It’s a fair one, but ownership of guns has been shown to increase probability of others bearing the cost. People shooting family members by mistake, family members shooting themselves by mistake, people going crazy and shooting lots of other people’s family members on purpose. It’s a solid argument that gun ownership has an externality and thus should be regulated strictly. It’s not inconsistent with libertarian principles. Note that I’m not making the argument that the US should institute gun control in some shape or form(although I really think you should). I’m just saying that if it did, I don’t see it being inconsistent with libertarianism because I think gun ownership has externalities.
I’ll admit I don’t have much respect for libertarianism. I think it’s silly for a number of reasons. And this thread hasn’t done anything to change my views.
But I did not start this thread with the intent of making fun of libertarianism. I wanted to give libertarians a fair chance to present their views and I tried to show respect.
However, enough is enough. The respect I was giving was not reciprocated. So I’ve given libertarianism all the respect I plan to and more respect than it deserves.
These are the things that make people question your motives. It could be that you have truly not understood anything that has been said thus far.
The worker that is fired does not enjoy *only *theoretical freedom. They have actual freedom. Sometimes that results in poor outcomes, sometimes it does not. Poor outcomes does not make anyone less free. Freedom to succeed must also entail freedom to fail. Your focus is on the outcome - the state of employment. The libertarian’s focus is on the process. You may object to the outcome and the libertarian will say, so what? Find other employment, make yourself valuable to an employer, become an employer yourself, or suffer. The worker is no less free with any of these outcomes.
Taking your ball, turning over the game board, and going home I see. That certainly is consistent with your approach in this thread.
The lambs have a right to organize…as do the lions.
I’m one, and I’m not going to do it because John Mace and others are doing a perfectly fine job of explaining it to you, and you have proven either unwilling or unable to grasp things that are clearly and repeatedly explained. When you can say something like:
when it’s been explained repeatedly to you that there is no contradiction there, I see no reason for one more person bashing his head against your wall of ignorance.
I am a libertarian, and I do not give a wet shit about whatever “Libertaria” or “Libertopia” would be like, unless I’m reading a SciFi book or something. I’ve never read much Ayn Rand, but from what I know of her she was kind of a nut, same as the extremist nuts who take any political philosophy too far. Like most libertarians, I don’t have some grand scheme for organizing the ideal society, because the only people that do are psycho asshole control freaks.
I don’t want to pass on debt to our kids, and I want less government interference in people’s private lives – including those it claims to help (I became a libertarian after years of working with the homeless and seeing the counterproductivity of much government-run social services), and I want a lot less bombing and shooting people. That’s pretty much it, and it knocks both of our major political parties/philosophies out for me, and makes me a small-l libertarian.
If that’s all too hard for you grasp … well, I couldn’t figure out calculus, either. We all have limitations.
Hahah. Enough is enough? You start a thread with ridiculous questions that make no sense, and are essentially structured to garner replies that you can use to reinforce your dislike of the system, people spend a lot of time and four pages worth of posts laboriously trying to explain to you how you’re mistaken, being very honest about the actual limitations of a system that they actually understand, and this is what you have to say? You never approached this topic with an open mind, or your questions and responses would have been quite different.
ETA: I’m not even a libertarian btw.