Libertaria: a case study

In another thread, http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=119298 I admitted my confusion between anarchism and liberterianism.

Help?

Anarchy admits no government. Libertarianism admits a government whose sole role is protecting people from external coercion.

…However such coercion might variously be defined. :slight_smile:

What is this giant squit to which you refer?

Just out of curiosity, doesn’t the phrase case study refer to a detailed analysis of specific person, object or process that already exists? If so, isn’t that mildly contradictory to this sort of bull session debating what-if’s about freedoms in the hypothetical state of Libertaria?

Poor use of terminology makes baby aynrand cry.

Err, a specific person. That was a typo, may aynrand forgive me.

In previous threads on this subject, several people (including myself) have described situations which we feel illustrated flaws with libertarian principles. The libertarians in the threads argued that the situations we were describing were so unrealistic that they couldn’t occur and therefore didn’t have to be addressed. Libertarian described these as “what if a giant squid attacked?” scenarios.

So, not having been part of those past giant squid threads …

How would anarchism and Liberteria each deal with drugs of potential abuse?

With crimes of person against person?

With civil defense?

In “Anarchia” if a group of individuals decided to form a cooperative venture that contained hierarchy and, within it, property rights, what would be the consequences, and how then would it be different from Liberteria?

Sorry to be making this a GQ, but this is where the people who would know are hanging, and I’m venturing a guess that the answers will involve some debate.

If a giant squid attacked and I killed it would I have to share all the calamari or would it be my property?

Well, if no libertarians (big or little “l”) show up by tomorrow, I’ll take a stab at answering some of the How to Build Your Own Libertaria questions (hopefully with a little help from erl, Gad or RTF.

Re: Calamari — I think that would depend on who [whom?] owned the property on which the GS® expired. Perhaps you could broker the ink rights?

I don’t want to get into the whole, ‘does libertaria create a just society’ argument, because I think in many ways it’s an open question, but I want to address handicapped issues for a minute.

One of the problems I think people have when they try to envision how libertarian society would do some of the things the government does now, is that they think the only way to achieve something is by doing what the government does.

The government has vast powers of coercion, and so when it envisions solutions to the problems of the handicapped, it envisions using the tools it has. Government doesn’t invent new products. Government is lousy at innovation. But it’s good at forcing people to do things. So the kind of solutions for the handicapped that you get out of government tend to be things like mandatory wheelchair curbs, mandatory ramps in buildings, mandatory bathroom stalls for the handicapped.

Because Libertaria can’t offer those kinds of solutions, people believe that the handicapped would be screwed. But let’s consider a world that didn’t have the access for conventional wheelchairs everywhere. If that were the case, then the focus for providing access for the handicapped would turn to other methods. Deam Kamen invented a wheelchair that can climb stairs - if there were no universal access, there would be a ton of demand for devices like that, and much more R&D devoted to them.

Without universal handicapped access, stores and restaraunts that offer that kind of access would get a much higher percentage of handicapped customers. As a result, you might see society evolve in a direction where handicapped access isn’t universal, but there would be ‘pockets’ of handicapped-accessible places like shopping malls and invidivual restaraunts that would provide even better access than they enjoy today. In the meantime, the level of technology available for the handicapped would be much greater, and the price would be lower than it currently is.

Would this be a better society for the handicapped to live in? I don’t know. It would be different. It would be more efficient, certainly.

When trying to envision how libertarian society would replace the roles carried out by the government, it’s important to try to think ‘outside of the box’, because government solutions are rarely applicable to the private sector.

I don’t want to get into the whole, ‘does libertaria create a just society’ argument, because I think in many ways it’s an open question, but I want to address handicapped issues for a minute.

One of the problems I think people have when they try to envision how libertarian society would do some of the things the government does now, is that they think the only way to achieve something is by doing what the government does.

The government has vast powers of coercion, and so when it envisions solutions to the problems of the handicapped, it envisions using the tools it has. Government doesn’t invent new products. Government is lousy at innovation. But it’s good at forcing people to do things. So the kind of solutions for the handicapped that you get out of government tend to be things like mandatory wheelchair curbs, mandatory ramps in buildings, mandatory bathroom stalls for the handicapped.

Because Libertaria can’t offer those kinds of solutions, people believe that the handicapped would be screwed. But let’s consider a world that didn’t have the access for conventional wheelchairs everywhere. If that were the case, then the focus for providing access for the handicapped would turn to other methods. Deam Kamen invented a wheelchair that can climb stairs - if there were no universal access, there would be a ton of demand for devices like that, and much more R&D devoted to them.

Without universal handicapped access, stores and restaraunts that offer that kind of access would get a much higher percentage of handicapped customers. As a result, you might see society evolve in a direction where handicapped access isn’t universal, but there would be ‘pockets’ of handicapped-accessible places like shopping malls and invidivual restaraunts that would provide even better access than they enjoy today. In the meantime, the level of technology available for the handicapped would be much greater, and the price would be lower than it currently is.

Would this be a better society for the handicapped to live in? I don’t know. It would be different. It would be more efficient, certainly.

When trying to envision how libertarian society would replace the roles carried out by the government, it’s important to try to think ‘outside of the box’, because government solutions are rarely applicable to the private sector.

As an example, think about the way the market handles overly large or small people. If the government had decided that extra-tall or heavy people had a right to clothing, their solution of choice probably would have been to demand that every manufacturer create X% of their product lines in various sizes. So there would have never been a market need for ‘big and tall’ stores.

Think about what would happen with a solution like that. If stores were forced to make, say, 10% of their goods in tall sizes, there would be areas where that wasn’t enough, and there would be shortages, and areas where there would be too much, and product would sit on shelves and not sell. Overall efficiency in garment manufacture would go down, and the net result would be an increase in the cost of clothing overall, as manufacturers spread the inefficiency around.

With handicapped access mandated by government, the same thing occurs. In our area, for example, the government mandates that X% of stalls in a parking lot be handicap-only. In my local area, which is heavily military (and thus doesn’t have a lot of handicapped people), these stalls are useless. Our local Safeway grocery store has 16 handicapped stalls right at front, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than 1 or 2 cars in it.

On the other hand, a Safeway near a large retirement complex may not have enough of those stalls.

If there were no government requirement for this, my suspicion is that there might not be any handicapped stalls at the Safeway near me, but lots more at the safeway near the retirement community. In addition, when handicapped people are looking for a place to live, they would start to factor such access into their choices. Over a long period of time, handicapped people would tend to congregate in certain areas, and stores in those areas would become specialized at meeting the needs of the handicapped.

Would this be a better solution overall? I don’t know. But I guarantee it would be a lot more efficient than what the government can do, because the government has to paint with a large brush and the market doesn’t. It’s also a solution I prefer, because I don’t think it’s right to use government force to tell a business person who they must serve and how.

Um, Sam. We know what would have happened without the ADA. We just have to look at handicapped access before 1990 or before (say) 1976? when the handicapped started agitating for greater access.

"Over a long period of time, handicapped people would tend to congregate in certain areas, and stores in those areas would become specialized at meeting the needs of the handicapped. "

Apropos nothing, that’s an example of the Tiebout effect. http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/VIP/Tiebout.html

Actually, it’s not an example of the Tiebout effect. Sorry. An example of the Tiebout effect would be if certain municipalities had extensive pro-disabled zoning requirements, while others did not. The handicapped then sort themselves into territories with good handicapped facilities; others might locate at towns with good schools; still others choose parks, etc.

The Tiebout effect is about public expenditure distribution. Sorry for the brain glitch.

In regards to the Giant Squids

Not exactly.

There was, in fact, a scenario offered having to do with land ownership. The specific question was actually asked. What would happen if giant sentient squids arose from the ocean floor and produced legitimate title to all the land that is now America? Thenceforth, I refered to all such scenarios (remember the one about the man who owned all the water on earth?) as Giant Squid scenarios.

Ok, now that two people have brought it up, it is a case study in that the market as it stood all throughout America’s history had nothing stopping it from catering to handicapped access. And yet it didn’t happen without political action. The case in question is our history, except that I remove the politics from it as a hypothetical and ask whether it would have been addressed had the government been Libertarian.

Well, now that we know about Giant Squids, let me see if I can give a fair answer to some of the likely questions pertaining to Libertaria.

Shodan asks:[ul][li]Is it OK to organize public boycotts in Libertaria? Absolutely. Refusal to purchase a good or service is not coercion. However, libel and slander could be considered coercive in a libertarian context, so any claims made by the organizer(s) of a boycott would have to bear up to legal scrutiny.[][Does] Libertaria [have] a standing army, or other such activities that work when centralized and coordinated by the government?* Libertaria would have an army large enough to defend its citizens from coercion from outside the contractual entity of Libertaria.[/ul][/li]
DSeid wonders:[ul][li]How would anarchism and Liberteria each deal with drugs of potential abuse? Libertarians don’t consider personal recreational choices any business of the government to either encourage or prohibit. If I want to grow/produce/manufacture pharmaceuticals on my own property and sell them to willing consumers, I must only refrain from any fraudulent claims about my product which would tend to cheat my customers. Anarchists, I suppose would let me tie you to a chair and get you hooked on the drug, as long as it didn’t upset the neighbors.[]With crimes of person against person? In Libertaria, all forms of coercion, fraud and breach of contract (a form of fraud) are prosecutable offenses. In Anarchia, anything which sufficiently angers an organized section of society should only be attempted if an escape route or a larger and contrarily motivated section of society is available.[]With civil defense? Libertaria — defense of borders/citizens against outside aggression. Anarchia — you and what army?In “Anarchia” if a group of individuals decided to form a cooperative venture that contained hierarchy and, within it, property rights, what would be the consequences, and how then would it be different from Liberteria? Essentially, no difference, except in Libertaria property rights are already guaranteed (regardless of membership in a co-op) and any coercive actions undertaken by the cooperative venture against others would be prohibited and prosecuted.[/ul][/li]
I hope I haven’t misrepresented libertarian thought too egregiously. (All I know is what I read in the SDMB.)

Sounds about right to me. There is a strong philosophical and historical reason to suggest that anarchy will always result in at least Libertarianism, at best a minimal state (which is a bit more restrictive than libertarian state), and anything greater than that.

I would at least imagine that applied anarchy would look vastly similar to libertarianism, except that it wouldn’t have a contractual army and would have several competing forms of currency. I’m sure there are other points, but I think that is what DSeid is troubled about. The idea that practical anarchism results in a minimal state, or a libertarian one.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia: a very interesting read for those so inclined.

I realize I’m taking a couple of sentences out of the middle of your post, but I feel what you wrote illustrates a major problem of attitude many libertarians have.

It’s of course true that “the government” doesn’t invent new products or innovations. It’s also true that businesses don’t invent new products or innovations. Nor do charitable agencies, political parties, labor unions, religious groups, aristocracies, volunteer militias, or think tanks. New products or innovations are invented by people.

But it seems to be a belief among many (although not all) libertarians that if people create an innovative idea and then organize into a government to effect their idea, it’s a bad thing. However if these same people had the same idea but organized into a corporation to effect it, it would be a good thing. To me we should judge on the basis of what the idea is and what the means are for effecting it, not on what type of organization is used. Any of the organizations I listed above can act just as arbitrarily and coercively as a government is cabable of.

Xeno

On the contrary, your representation has been accurate and fair. Intellectual honesty is your hallmark. It is what I think of first when I think of you.