Well the separate nation of American economics was very Libertarian since Reagan. We deregulated it and allowed the rules and oversight to relax.
How did that work out? It should be the death of Libertarianism in economics.
It won’t be though. greed is good after all.
There are also a large number of folks here who consider themselves libertarian or something close to it. The reason for both is the same: Folks here, in general, actually have a clue what libertarianism is. Most folks escape having antipathy about libertarianism by simply having apathy about it instead.
And the reason that folks who describe themselves as libertarian say that Somalia isn’t libertarian is that for most of them, the philosophy they actually espouse is “laws that benefit me are good; laws that benefit other people are bad”. All of the things that they decry as government being over-intrusive could be re-cast as “just protecting property rights” or whatever, if looked at from someone else’s point of view.
If you’re being serious, and you think that something close to libertarianism has been tried, why don’t you tell us what it is and why you think it at least approximates a libertarian government.
Wow. On a board dedicated to fighting ignorance it is especially sad to see something like that posted by one of our more highly educated posters. You know a lot of libertarian-leaning posters here like me, Sam Stone, Lemur, etc., and if you really thing that is what our position is, then you haven’t been paying attention.
This would be my answer. The government pretty much limited itself to protection of the people. Capitalists flourished unregulated, sometimes with support from the government. The was no central bank. The government did support major infrastructure projects, but contracted with private companies to do them.
This is economic libertarianism only. We’re probably more socially libeftarian today than ever, though we still have a long way to go.
The downside was that a few or a hundred worlers died in fires, thanks to their bosses locking the doors, not having to answer that pesky OSHA, recurrent cycles of recessions and sometimes deflation, impure food and pollution. But other than that it was a paradise - assuming your name was Carnegie.
That may well be what you think a libertarian state would look like, but that’s no indication at all that it would in fact be the case.
Nobody in Somalia has said they were establishing a libertarian or classical liberal state; nobody in Somalia expressed praise for the idea of noncoerced free exchange; nobody in Somalia quoting is Spencer, Garrison, Thoreau, Hayek, Rand, Friedman, etc. The only people making any connection between libertarianism and Somalia are American liberals, based on what they think other people think.
It’s as meaningful as saying “If we elect Progressives, America will be just like Russia/France/Zimbabwe.”
In other words, it’s an empty, unimaginative slur, based on ignorance.
To answer the OP: There is no purely libertarian state, any more than there is a purely progressive or purely conservative or purely anything state (at least in places that have any level of democracy). It’s a school of thought, which itself includes a wide variety of views, from mainstream political figures all the way to near-anarchists.
If you’re looking for the places where libertian thought has had the most purchase, or where things were run most in line with libertarian thinking, the most commonly cited places are pre-Chinese takeover Hong Kong and, currently, the nation of Estonia.
One can use that argument in defense of anything. It has been used in defense of socialism, and communism.
People have said that the War on Poverty would have ended poverty and the social pathologies of the poor if it had been better funded. People have also said that supply side economics would have balanced the budget if Democratic Congressional representatives had allowed President Reagan to destroy domestic spending programs they had spent their careers building.
You will never get everything you want. To find the best approximation of libertarianism in practice study the economy of the nineteenth century, and read some of the grimmer novels of Charles Dickens.
Not really, it was a one-off when the thread was still in IMHO. Since I’m not arguing that black people are genetically inferior, I think I’m ineligible to post in Great Debates.
Kinda sorta, but not really. No one has ever tried to set up a libertarian state. Socialism and communism have been tried many times.
I thought your comment was right on the money. Some people don’t want to admit that libertarianism is just as Utopian as Communism.
You probably don’t realize that that’s what your position is: If you did, you’d be horrified and change your positions. But in actual practice, that’s what it boils down to.
Is Libertarianism a case of “‘Do what thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the law”? Or maybe, ‘An it harm none, do what thou wilt’? Or is it thinly disguised Objectivism: “I don’t care what you do, so long as you don’t touch my property … or anybody else’s, either. Now go away somewhere and die” – a kleptocracy of the Haves against the Have Nots.
It makes a huge difference to how this question gets answered.
And, please note, without Liberal’s two supplemental principles: Generous voluntary individual aid of those who need it, and a minimalist government which does only “what is necessary” (necessity being defined by the libertarian theorist) –
Without those two safety valves, there is nothing enforcing the precious property rights of those who have against the others who have no rights whatsoever except to crawl somewhere not the property of someone, and die.
I think that libertarianism along with all other form of government idealism such as communism, democracy, technocracy, benevolent dictatorship, is that they tend to rely on perfect people. If no one tries to abuse the system, and everyone is smart compassionate and industrious it works, otherwise it fails. But then again if you have perfect people just about any form of government will work.
Also not meaning to hijack the thread, but what is the libertarian solution for the orphaned and infirm? This isn’t meant to be a dig against them, I’m genuinely curious.
Some people have strange ideas at what libertarianism is. It is not an absence of laws; libertarians want a government that is strong enough to protect individual rights (mostly property and life rights). Somalia doesn’t fit a modern view of a libertarian society because there is not government strong enough to protect these rights. I do agree with those who think that Somalia is a possible result of a libertarian society if it is so afraid of central government that it ends up not being strong enough to protect rights.
Perhaps the closest we’ve come to a libertarian nation is the early US federal government–if you were a white male, that is. And there’s the rub; libertarianism requires equal rights for all races/sexes and we’ve only had that for the last 100 years at the most.
Which in turn raises the point that those rights were only gained in the US by the force of a strong central government against the will of a large segment of the people.
?
In a libertarian system people are still allowed to set up a non-profit, and people are allowed to donate to those non-profits.
Nothing in the libertarian principles would PREVENT you from taking in an orphan, or setting up an orphanage. You are free to set up any social assistance you want, and are free to accept donations from anyone that freely chips in.
Where as, the socialist alternative says that a governmental body knows how best to deal with orphans, and obligates the population to participate. Sounds good in theory, but relies on perfect people to get elected and then decide how best to deal with orphans…
And in actual practice, your position boils down to “I want make everyone my slave, murder lots of babies, and make poor brown-skinned people starve.”
Whee, strawmans are fun!
Not sure I can tell the difference.
My vote is for India. The country itself has a strong enough rule of law to protect property, but the government isn’t quite strong enough to enforce all the other layers of bureaucracy. If there is a store front left empty, someone will set up a shop and operate quite happily without licenses or paperwork for years.
Many of the states push religious doctrine concerning things like eating beef and drinking alcohol. But without enough force to actually stop it outright.
Not true; I’ve heard libertarians speak with approval about Somalia, as being more libertarian than America. Government being the Ultimate Evil, see, and having less government being more important that anything else.
That’s not a “solution for the orphaned and infirm”, since the public won’t do that to any significant degree. Especially in a libertarian society.
“That’s libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves” - Kim Stanley Robinson
That’s what libertarian boils down to, if it doesn’t outright collapse into a failed state. A government whose only function is to protect the wealthy and ensure that those they oppress don’t rise up against them. A government that ignores the starving, but will send troops against workers that try to unionize or to suppress food riots.
The biggest problem with this is that at some point SOMEONE must enforce live-and-let-live, or you’ve got warlords by default. And then you have the problem of selecting that someone, and preventing them from gaining more power than strictly necessary to enforce non-coercion.
Broadly speaking, and I say this as someone with Libertarian tendencies, a pure libertarian government has the exact same problem as every other government–figure out how to keep the greedy people out of power and you’re golden. No one has yet succeeded at this.
Why? What is it about a libertarian state that prevents people from donating to charity or adopting children?
There are currently thousands of registered charities in the US and other socialist countries that function just fine through private donors. People are free to donate as they wish. If they see the charity as performing a vital function they’ll pay more. If they see it as a waste of time they won’t. Exactly what happens now.
In fact, my experience working at a non-profit for the past 5 years taught me that government sucks at providing funds for the needy. It’s just another political game where funding can be cut at any moment, to suit the whim of who ever gets elected.
Look at the mess with Republicans trying to fuck with Planned Parenthood. It’s all politically motivated, where they are given the power to offer and withhold political funding as part of their game.