Wrong. In that case, the government should just send soldiers to whoever has the generators and take them, at gunpoint if necessary.
I underestimated your capacity for hyperbole.
In your mind libertarianism is dog eat dog. In reality it is dog enters mutually beneficial contract with dog. Your ramblings here are tantamount to government eat dog and let other dogs nibble on the scraps.
“Give me everything you have or I leave you to die” is extortion, not “mutually beneficial”. It’s no different than pointing a gun at someone’s face and demanding they hand over their wallet.
Yes, I’ve heard this platitude once or twice before.
It will all work wonderfully since all contracts are inherently “mutually beneficial” - otherwise, why would both parties enter into one? There could never be a case where one party dictates unfair terms the other has no choice but to accept. The libertarian ideal precludes the notion that anyone could ever come to a contract with the intent of maximizing their benefit from it, and of course anyone who is so desperate they have no leverage to demand a fair contract wouldn’t exist.
Libertarianism in practice could never be anything but dog-eat-dog and mutually beneficial ass-rape… with the public at large frequently providing the sphincter to those of pointy dick and no regard for anything but their own well being.
ETA: Oh, yes, I forgot: any Libertarian who acted so meanly would never, ever be let into a party meeting again. That takes care of it.
No A would not have that right in a libertarian society.
Government creates morality and altruism? I find that idea perverse.
Ok just so I can get this straight, the person being saved from certain death is the prey right?
What is your remedy? To pass a law that states that people can’t be mean to each other? Or out-negotiate somebody else?
A gets saved from death. B gets revenue. Do you just not know what mutually beneficial means?
No, it’s a system not entirely dependent on individual self-control and good will to manage public and business affairs.
In the words of Darkman, you gotta be shittin’ me.
In a libertarian society there are no “rights”, only power.
Government makes most forms of morality possible, by restraining the predators.
“Saved” by being reduced to utter poverty in a society that will regard him as vermin for being without money. He’d be better off dead, and probably die soon anyway.
There are mean and selfish people in society. One of them happens to be B. He is a ruthless dealer and drives a hard bargain. Even I, the morally bankrupt libertarian, find him to be immoral in his dealings. He is worse than all Republicans combined! To top it off, he’s religious! Anyway, he finds this guy A who is dying of thirst in the desert. B has plenty of water to go around and then some. It wouldn’t cost him anything to give A some drink. The problem is, he’s an asshole. A big time asshole. And rich too! He values seeing A die at $50,000 dollars. A is worth $50,001. B levels with A. “Look, I’m one rich asshole, but I’m rational. If you sign this contract giving me your $50,001, I’ll give all the water you need.” A, who is near expiration, takes the offer.
Now the question is “What can the government do to save A from B’s greediness while guaranteeing his salvation?” In your world, the courts wouldn’t honor the contract. If this was the case, there would be no incentive for B to save A to begin with. A would die and B would benefit by watching A die (he’s into sick stuff like that). In a libertarian world, where B knew his contract would be honored, he would save A in order to fulfill the contract and get paid handsomely. A would live in this scenario. Whether or not he is poor afterward is irrelevant. You’re trying to make A’s decision for him, typical authoritarian thinking.
Oh but such an asshole like I described would be rare, maybe one in 10,000. 9,999 people would save A for free or a small amount to cover expenditures. Still, in a libertarian world, A would be saved 10,000 out of 10,000 times, while in in a society that doesn’t honor contracts, A would only survive 9,999 out of 10,000 times. If you don’t care about A’s life being saved just say so.
That sounds very glorious and grand, but I have no idea what such a “system” means.
By tautological definition, a “system” that is not dependent on individual self-control, must have that individual disempower himself and place authoritative control in the hands of someone else to decide his fate. And true authoritative control must come with legal use of the gun.
If you have another idea of such a “system”, I would appreciate you enlightening me on what it means.
Otherwise, you are just another whiny hand-wringer who moans about all the evil and meanness in the world…and can’t somebody do something about it?
Whether one imagines WillFarnaby’s world as a Utopia or Dystopia is less interesting to me than how one can imagine it at all.
In the society envisioned by the Extrematarians, police forces are private and available to the highest bidder; elections (assuming we need at least some government officials, e.g. to judge contracts) will surely be effectively for sale; landowners can shoot trespassers; we telephone our banker on any transaction to determine the current rate on whatever variety of private banknote a purchaser is offering; Jones’ Food Safety Agency will have an incentive to bribe restaurants guaranteed by Smith’s Food Safety Agency to contaminate their food to discredit Smith’s – and Smith’s loss of business will mean it will lack the money to hire the FBI to demonstrate Jones’ fraud. (FBI stands for Fred’s Bureau of Investigation: there are no government detectives.)
Yet in this environment, which seems most to resemble Somalia or Judge Bean’s Law West of the Pecos, paper contracts are somehow sacrosanct. :smack:
American contract law is non-trivial. I don’t think clinical idiots can make binding contracts here, but presumably they can in Will’s Utopia – It’s all in the Survival-of-the-Fittest game, right?
I’m not trying to poke fun; my question is sincere. Hollywood makes lots of movies about dysfunctional futures. I really wish they’d do one for the Extrematrian’s Dystopia – I honestly cannot visualize it.
I actually think you’re the Extremeatarian. Basic constitutional law addresses many of your points above.
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No. Protection of property rights, as well as basic and inalienable rights, is a proper role of government.
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They’re for sale now. And the reason they are for sale, is that government agencies have something to offer in return - contracts, more union jobs, subsidies for companies like Solyndra. Take away the government’s ability to dispense largesse, and there is nothing for sale. There is nothing to buy. You’re attacking the problem from the wrong end.
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Maybe. Why not? Some grey area here, for which reasonable courts of law can rule and adjudicate. What exactly are you advocating here? That landowners should not be able to shoot trepassers? That if someone comes on my property to threaten me and family, that I should not be able to defend myself? What is it, that you are arguing here?
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That happens right now. Promissory notes and the like are actively traded and circulate vigorously as a funding source for many enterprises. What’s your problem with it?
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This fantastic example has so many ridiculous assumptions in it, I don’t know where to begin. Why would the restaurant want to discredit itself and poison its customers? Why would you eat at such a place, if its owners were that susceptible to bribery and short-term thinking to help someone else? If that’s the case…why isn’t it the case right now? How do you know you aren’t eating at restaurants right now, that are bribing the local FDA inspector?
You’re the Extreme-atarian dude. And you’re afraid of yourself. You think that by running into the warm, waiting arms of a government official you will save yourself from all of the unpleasantness in the world. Wake up.
I’m not going to waste time debating semantics in this limited venue, which is all your reply demands.
Government is the collective will of the citizenry, doing on behalf of all of us what individuals, no matter how empowered or enlightened, cannot do themselves. That includes holding up the weak and making quality of life available to all.
Too namby-pamby socialista for you? Tough shit. Go hide in your Libertarian paradise, knowing you’re safe because you’re surrounded by a strong government. We used to build play forts and imaginary countries too, and then we grew up.
Wow. Sounds like I struck a nerve.
Which “weak” people are you talking about, exactly? Who do you want to “hold up”?
I don’t really like the idea of ethical standards that are based on contrived and exceedingly rare scenarios. Contract validity relating to opportunistic water-hoarders combing the desert looking for the stranded seems like a class that will not be very well-attended down at the law school. Moral codes should be for people’s actual lives.
You seem to be arguing the strawman that libertarianism is equivalent to anarchism. It is not. In anarchism, might makes right, as you assert; in libertarianism, government DOES exist and it has certain powers, just restrained powers. What those powers should be depends on the particular libertarian, but in general, they will be those things that they believe either the government MUST do because it cannot or should not be privatized, like national defense, or things that they somehow have real and significant benefits to do over a free-market solution. And the answers to those aren’t necessarily going to be static as technology evolves.
Bottom line, anyone who claims to be libertarian but doesn’t believe that a government should exist or that it is created by the richest or most powerful people aren’t libertarians, they’re anarchists, or some variant.
Morality exists with or without government. A lot of people, perhaps even most people, will generally do the right thing even if there isn’t a government there to punish them when they’re wrong or reward them when they’re right. Afterall, WE put the government in place, the government is supposed to represent and reflect what we believe to be our fundamental rights and basest morals. Look at how cultural values have changed government over time to prove this. Slavery, civil rights, women’s suffrage, or as is happening now with gay rights, are good examples. Yes, they’re requiring government action, but before the government will take action, enough people have to be passionate enough about those changes to elect people that are willing to do those things. That is, at least in a representative democracy, the government can only enforce values to a point, because if enough people oppose, those people will be voted out and the changes will be reverted.
I really have no idea what you’re going for here. Just because a libertarian society would have a weaker central government, and more localized power, it does not follow that people will despise people who are poor, nor does it even follow that the contract would necessarily be enforceable as created.
In fact, as a libertarian myself, I specifically said earlier that that contract would hold up if disputed because the dying person in the desert would have a good case for the agreement being made under duress and would likely win in a civil suit.
Even moreso, I don’t even think it’s a fair criticism of libertarianism to use such an extreme case. I could easily construct similar extreme cases about how our current government isn’t anywhere near strict enough because there’s people out there getting murdered and extorted and kidnapped, so clearly we need stronger laws and greater enforcement until the crime rate is zero. I don’t think it follows that because the government isn’t babysitting everyone that all of the sudden, everyone becomes immoral assholes and everyone who might come across someone in the desert would extort them. I think it would still be an exceedingly rare case and that the overwhelming majority of people, regardless of the sort of government they’re under, would help someone dying in the desert, probably even at a personal loss.
So, yeah, I just don’t get this idea that somehow a libertarian government would mean that all morals of society would just vanish. I’d really like to see your justification for this assertion.
The people being harmed by the contaminated food would make a claim on their insurance in the event of death or injury. The insurance company would have an incentive to investigate and the bribed restaurants and Jones Food Safety would likely be held liable, destroying both of their reputations.
Also if Smith certified restaurants started to poison their customers, Smith could simply revoke their certification. Just like in manufacturing operations today, if you fail an audit, you can lose your certification.
There is indeed a problem with how to protect the mentally handicapped and children. I’m not sure how this would happen with market anarchy.
It has no relation to Somalia. There is little respect for contract rights or any other law in Somalia as far as I am aware.
I just expanded the OP to the worst possible scenario for A to show that if contracts were known to be void under these circumstances, A would die. If there is another way we can have B save A, i’d like to hear it.
The thing is, this hypothetical makes the case for libertarianism rather than against it. **Der Trihs ** brought up the idea of confiscating generators to save the folks in a disaster. Well that brings up other problems, that I won’t go into, but in the desert scenario, what can the government do? They can’t confiscate B’s water, they aren’t there at all. Only the recognition of this contract, however immoral to every single person other than B, will save A.
That’s the whole point. You envision a society where police, inspectors, and lawyers are all for sale to the highest bidder and … everyone magically has respect for paper contracts? 
Does everyone have a brain implant or something?
Dude…or dude-ess. Whichever it is. You are confusing yourself. You have gone down such a bizarre, non-sensical rabbit hole that you are confusing yourself.
Why aren’t police for sale RIGHT NOW? Or are they? Aren’t they? Are they?
Why aren’t inspectors for sale RIGHT NOW? Hint…some of them are.
Why aren’t lawyers and judges for sale RIGHT NOW? Hint…some of them are.
Why are you equating your Libertarian Straw Man with the case where police, inspectors and lawyers are ‘for sale’?
But for some reason, you are discounting the possibility that is happening RIGHT NOW?
What are the mechanisms in place today that keep police, inspectors, and lawyers honest? Do they work? Would the same mechanisms be in place, or not in place, in a libertarian society? Could the mechanisms be better?
I would argue they would be just as effective in a libertarian society, if not better. You seem to be discounting the fact that those people are already “for sale” today, but then also presume no mechanisms are in place to prevent such things from happening in a libertarian society.
Why? I don’t know. I think you are confusing yourself.