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.
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 have said nothing about “needs”.
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.
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.
Uh oh. Looks like you might be proceeding to draw conclusions from false premises…
Does that mean “with a clean slate”?
Whoever buys it.
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.
Fraud is a crime in Libertaria.
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.
Well, as a similar answer, whoever acquires something will typically pay for it, providing other arrangements have not been made.
What system are you talking about? Republicanism? Democracy? Dictatorship?
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.
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.
[scratching head…]
Huh? There is no such thing as “public property” or “public domain” in Libertaria.
[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 by Ludwig von Mises. Please return to this discussion after having read that work, and we can continue.
Or perhaps, start over.
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.
Irrelevant.
That presumes the entitlement of “all other citizens” to your property. How in the world did you tie such a notion to libertarianism?
Edlyn, where are you? I could use a good roll in the hay right now.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Because I derive great pleasure from it; that is to say, I want to.
Probably.
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.
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?
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.
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 …
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
No public 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
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:
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:
You have made my time here worthwhile. Thank you for your kindnesses.
junebeetle
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.
Haven’t “we” been working on it for 200 years?
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.
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.
[quote]
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
? 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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
