Corrected Free-Market link: http://www.free-market.net
I honestly don’t know if you’re just being a smartass or if you’re really getting wooshed by what’s being asked. There are numerous issues (such as who will get all of this state property, what happens with legal issues still in dispute from pre-Libertaria times) which people generally worry about when someone starts talking about hardcore Libertarianism, and making pithy statements like the above or railing about Tyranny and Oppression instead of addressing concerns isn’t going to win anyone over to your side.
And hey, why do you waste your time arguing about what you really mean, since you can just hire someone to secure those rights today and go straight to Libertaria?
No, I simply use the common meanings of the terms instead of the somewhat odd definitions you typically use. Your version of “Libertarianism” is better described as “anarcho-capitalism”. The Libertarian Party, for example, does not advocate the removal of the nation-state as you do. I’m not really interested in arguing over the basic definitions here, I was merely clarifying what I was saying for the benefit of other people.
Do you really want me to dig out cites of the word “libertarian” being used to mean (n) “person in favor of smaller government” or (adj) “system of governemt which intereferes with the individual to as small a degree as possible”, or to go drag out a dictionary entry? And I find it rather hard to believe that someone who advocates what you do believes that the US government (or government of wherever the person lives) should not be smaller. If that’s really what you believe, I’ll quote some verbiage from the emails I get from the LP about reducing the size of the current government to demonstrate that it is a libertarian position.
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You must not have looked very hard. That’s probably one of the most common topics for everyone from Cato to Free-Market. In fact, go to http://www.free-market.net, look in their catergories for “Scholarly and In-Depth Studies; Privatization”. Here’s one paper on the topic: Roads Without the State.
I’ve looked around before and haven’t seen the topic covered. I’ve seen lots of ink (well, electrons) on how a system of private toll roads could work, like your article, but all of them just blow off the question of how to get from here to there, saying something along the lines of ‘just sell off the roads’. If you have a cite that actually proposes some sort of plan that addresses concerns like those I mention below then I’d appreciate it, but a link to free-market.net doesn’t cut it.
I mean, in that article on mannkal, the sum total of what it says about moving from the current system to a privately owned system is: “The various state and local government owned turnpikes, toll bridges and tunnels can simply be sold off to the highest bidders.” “Existing highways can be either sold off by the states or franchises awarded to business to improve and maintain them in return for rights to levy tolls, sell off utility right-of-way and run service and refreshment concessions”. That hardly tells me how to avoid the ‘vested interests’, who have so much influence in congress today, taking the roads for themselves, making a pretty profit and gaining the ability for coercive control (even if its not technically coercive in the libertarian sense) by locking people they don’t agree with into their homes. It doesn’t tell me whether I’m going to be more or less free after the switch; am I still going to be able to drive from here to Florida without paying a thousand dollars in tolls (something which I can do now), am I going to be able to drive from my house to the grocery store after the sell-off without having to sign an agreement not to sue Time-Warner-Glaxo for any reason (since, whoops, they own all of the roads I can you to leave home), and other questions of that ilk.
First off, you dodged around the main point - it doesn’t require some sort of magical control over time for a government to work with cases in the past, it’s been done by countries that don’t have such control. But more importantly, since I can just hire ‘countries’ at will under your scheme, why would I choose Libertaria over Justictaria where I can actually do something to the former party member who killed my family, stole my property, and sent me off to forced labor for the past decade? Or even the one who will handle the case of my daughter being kidnapped two years ago?
Tyranny? I thought the whole idea behind Libertarianism as practiced by you was property rights. Since protecting property rights is one of the primary purposes of Libertaria’s government, asserting that settling disputes over exactly who owns which piece of property would be ‘tyranny’ makes absolutely no sense to me. How in the world does Libertaria determine how a new ‘subscriber’ owns developed land if not by the land deeds that existed before Libertaria came around? Do I just say ‘oh yeah, I own that back half of what my neighbor thinks is his yard. Old deeds? How dare you look at those! That’s tyranny!’
You explicitly said that if someone from Libertaria initiated force against someone not in Libertaria (say, by trespassing) that Libertaria would intervene if the victim retaliated in a manner not approved of by Libertaria (say, by shooting the trespasser). Either “Libertaria is not concerned with borders and is not a regime with any legitimacy beyond your consent,” and I’m free to do what I want as long as I don’t initiate force against anyone from Libertaria, or Libertaria does claim to rule over me without my consent if I respond to a violation of my rights by someone from Libertaria in a manner which you (or Libertaria) doesn’t like. This was in an old thread on this board, so it’s possible that your opinion on retalitory force has changed.
Allow me to say that I don’t care a lick for the proportions in which wealth is possessed, so long as that wealth is obtained through non-coercive methods. I don’t recognize this “weak-coercion” principle mentioned by Gadarene as a valid concern, because any attempt to eliminate a “weak-coercion” would necessarily entail a strong-coercion, in the ordinary direct sense of the word. If one holds the principles of libertarianism, then one would not care to correct that situation, if indeed it requires correction. The cure would be worse than the disease.
Also, to my mind, it is the liberty itself that is desirable, not any outcomes it may generate. A world in which negative rights are protected (unless you voluntarily waive them) and no positive obligations are imposed (other than those you choose to adopt) seems worthwhile on its face.
Suppose the people of the United States completely embraced the ideals of Libertarianism tomorrow. The government (national, state, and local) would all be dissolved. But the problem would then exist of who would take ownership of the property formerly owned by the now non-existent government.
For example, there is a street outside my window that is currently owned, along with the land it lies upon, by the city of Rochester. If the city of Rochester ceased to exist as a legal entity, who would own that street? Would it be the first person who planted his figurative flag in it and declared himself the owner? Would the street belong to the person whose house is next to it? Would the street, along with the other property of the former city, be divided equitably among the citizens living here? If so, who would decide who gets what share? Or would it be decided there was some type of de facto collective ownership of the street?
Or suppose an even more mundane example. A police officer is finishing his tour of duty at four am and finds that because the government was disbanded at midnight, there no longer is a police department and he no longer has any legal authority as a police officer. The officer decides to start his own private law enforcement company and, as start up equipment, drives his police car with all its equipment home with him. Was his actions right or wrong? It seems like theft, but if so, who was he stealing from? And if his actions were wrong, what was the right thing to have done? Who did the police car belong to at 12:01?
Riboflavin wrote:
Well, if you don’t know, then don’t assume. It sounds to me like you’re asking if the US descended into anarchy and some people decided to start a libertarian government, what would happen to all that public land? The part I don’t understand is why that is a question for me or the libertarian government? Why would I or it have any authority over that public land? It’s your hypothetically defunct system that created it. Let your hypothetically defunct system deal with it.
Because you would murder me for it.
You mean for libertarianism? Libertarianism is the opposition to coercion.
It is a standard “version” that you can find at nearly any libertarian website. At Libertarian.org, for example, “Human interaction should be peaceful, voluntary, and honest. It is never acceptable to use physical force to achieve your goals. The only time force is acceptable is when you are defending against force.”
You look to a band of disgruntled Republican politicians for definitive libertarianism? Good lord. So since the Democratic Party doesn’t advocate law by referendum, have they redefined democracy?
Bullshit. You just want to pick a fight, and you don’t mind trampling on the language to do it.
[…shrug…] Whatever. Merriam-Webster says a libertarian is “an advocate of the doctrine of free will”. But it also defines survival of the fittest as natural selection. So it appears to be fallible.
I honestly don’t know whether you’re lying or blind. If you don’t like their solutions, tough.
It’s the only purpose, not the primary one. But it governs only the property of its citizens. If a plot of land is “unowned”, it has nothing legitimate to say about it.
I should have known that you would dredge up a Pit pile-on as a citation for your lie. I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I didn’t see anything like that in your Pit thread.
Little Nemo wrote:
Why is that a question for the Libertarians? You’re conflating a problem created by the dissolved nation-state with a problem that needs addressing by the new collective. It’s like asking what would happen if an asteroid destroyed Washington DC, and addressing the question to Cato.
Since we’re just supposing, why can’t we suppose that the government auctioned off its property before it dissolved? Or do only you get to suppose your way?
Ah, but this is just what almost everyone’s talking about here, Lib. This is what I meant when I asked “What’s your reform programme?” How do you start? What’s the transititional arrangement? What will be recognised as property rights? How do you deal with the baseline problem?
I think perhaps the term “weak-coercion” is misleading. You submit, correctly, that amelioration of “weak-coercion” requires more direct forms of coercion. However, this doesn’t neccessarily mean that a “strong” correction would be worse than the “weak” problem in terms of overall effects. Any direct correction (such as EEO laws, for instance) would effectively limit, rather than eliminate, the degree to which individuals with economic advantage can maintain their advantage, while at the same time reducing the means whereby the economically disadvantaged could be coerced.
erislover: Yesterday, I had posted a response to you, but apparently the hamsters were hungry. Basically, I think we need to agree on the definition of “ownership” in this context. What are the parameters by which ownership is determined?
Hawthorne wrote:
Well, everyone talking about it doesn’t signify anything except that everyone is talking about it. You start with a government that offers to secure people’s rights. I don’t see why “transition” or “reform” is a part of that government’s problem.
Once again, you retain an attorney. Why are all the unresolved cases in the system his responsibility while he’s working for you? Why do you call it his “baseline problem”?
OK, I think I understand that your position is that the courts decide who have title to various things. Fair enough. I guess you’re indifferent to whatever initial distribution of rights/ property gets thrown up by this process. I am troubled by it.
Well, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t be troubled by that process. I’m merely saying that it shouldn’t be shunted off into the lap of an entity that hardly seems responsible for it. Of course, I don’t see why a magistrate claiming all of it is any improvement, other than the lack of uncertainty.
What I think is really being pointed out here, if anything, is a “baseline problem” with authoritarianism. It creates property that is owned by an abstract entity, and when it fails, it leaves a legacy of uncertainty and fear.
But the crux of the baseline problem isn’t property owned by an abstract entity, Lib. It’s property owned by private citizens that has been shaped by the strictures of a heretofore nonlibertarian government. If libertarianism is simply liberty for liberty’s sake, without regard for differing outcomes produced by differing circumstances, then it loses a lot of its draw and becomes disconcertingly positivist: liberty is what liberty is; and whether you’re freeing someone to starve on the street or to amass greater wealth, the amount of liberty dispensed is equivalent.
How do you propose on escaping–rather than entrenching–any legacy of uncertainty and fear?
More later.
Well, from previous discussions this seems more like a rehash than any actual progress: we both agree this is where society comes in, and with it whatever government is necessary to secure this concept of property (rights).
My point was only to try and show that Libertaria’s “property means rights” isn’t really more than a paradign shift from almost all practice socialy accepted now, and so moving to libertaria—in this case/context—won’t affect much. The motivations for selling, buying, and otherwise exchanging property will be the same.
Gad
Property owned by private citizens? With all due respect, I feel like I’m being jerked around a bit here. I thought you were talking about “public property” that is suddenly “unowned”. Why is there a controversy now about private property?
Regarding equivalency, put aside any question about whether material wealth and happiness are the same. Even if everyone voluntarily redistributed all wealth until everyone shared an equal amount, it wouldn’t be long until it was all unequal again due to decision making and blind luck.
I don’t fear freedom. If I start out with less than you, I might end up twice as wealthy as you. If I’m free from your coercion, I am quite capable, thank you.
Lib:
I’m sorry if you feel jerked around; it’s not my intent. Private property has been my focus this entire thread–look towards the OP and my subsequent posts. It was, I think, Riboflavin who first started talking about turning public roads into private ones–while a valid concern (and one you and I have hashed out before), it wasn’t the baseline problem to which I’ve been referring.
Again, to the extent that liberty qua liberty is a sufficient goal for you–no matter the starting point–then we’ve articulated our fundamental impasse. I believe that liberty, much like democracy, is instrumental: valuable only insofar as it promotes and secures a better world in which to live.
…And due to whatever constraints happened to exist on the market. (Whether insider trading counted as “fraud” in that particular libertarian context, for example.) Yes. Exactly. But the inequality that would result would be more organic, more a product of individuals’ capacities, their actions, and their libertied choices. If we could begin a libertarian society with voluntary redistribution–that is, with a neutral baseline–and have things proceed from there however they might, I’d have much less difficulty with libertarianism.
Gad
Okay. Duly noted. I appreciate your point of view, and I apologize that I confused what you were talking about with what Riboflavin was talking about. God go with you in your search for answers.
And with you too, my good-hearted friend. 
(RexDart, I’m still planning on tackling your post…)
Gadarene, I’m gonna go ahead and respond a little to the stuff that’s been said since last night, but don’t let that stop you from tacking my original post if you so desire I would like to know which points you found interesting.
And I just think people have a misconception about the sort of “better” world that is achievable, or ought to be persued. I categorically deny any adherence to concepts like social justice, morality, ethics, right and wrong. To my mind they are all contrivances, used in recent years to foster a tyranny of the majority, to benefit that majority by imposing obligations on minorities at the point of a gun. And I make no moral judgment on that 
To say, as I do, that liberty for its own sake is desirable is not to drain the substance from liberty. Desire is a valid human concept that I do recognize. As I said before, I think it an end worthwhile by its own sake to protect negative rights and refrain from imposing positive obligations (with the caveats in my original post.) People desire that. They also desire alot of other things, but there’s a key distinction. Those are the only things that everybody wants and that everybody can have. Protecting negative rights does not impose positive obligations. It’s a perfect fit.
I don’t care about the overall effects in the same way you do. “Better” and “worse” only have meaning in the context of individuals and their goals. Any given situation is “better” or “worse” with respect to an individual depending on whether it furthers or frustrates his or her goals. Frustration requires a frustrator. What you describe as “weak-coercion” is really nothing more than a person realizing that the obstacles to his goals vary with respect to his situation as an individual. No person (or group of people acting in concert with one will) is frustrating his goals through artifice or force, his goals are simply more difficult to achieve due to his natural position. Since overriding that natural position would require direct coercion, a frustration of others’ goals through artifice and force, I believe it is rationally preferable to refrain from doing so.
I apologize for any confusion I may have contributed to. Gadarene’s original post clearly was talking about the issue of personal property. Other posters, including myself, shifted over to the topic of government owned property. In our defense, I’ll say that the topics are related, that opinions on one topic would have bearing on the other, and (in my opinion) the issue of government property would pose greater difficulties.
Libertarian offered a possible solution to the issue of divesting the government of property; auction off all government property to private ownership before the dissolution of the government. Obviously this wouldn’t be a complete solution as it would just leave the government in ownership of a different asset, but presumedly the money from the auction could be equitably distributed to all former citizens.
But this leads back to Gadarene’s original discussion. The total value of all government property far exceeds the amount of ready cash in hand, so the property would inevitably be sold for far less than its “book value”. Even so, most people would not have the assets to make signifigant purchases. What you’d end up with is a few people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett spending a few hundred millions to buy property that was actually worth tens of billions. This would be the epitomy of the problem Gadarene was pointing out.
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*Originally posted by Libertarian *
I’m asking how you go from the situation now, with the US possessing lots of public land, to the situation you envision in Libertaria. If that requires the US to descend into anarchy, fine, but that’s not something I’m stipulating.
It’s a question for you if you want to convince people that moving to Libertarianism would be a good thing. It’s a question for the hypothetical libertarian government because it would be one of the issues that decided between said Libertarian government actually forming or just remaining an idea that some fringe groups talk about at great length.
Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick, why would I want to murder you? What prompted you to make that accusation? Either you’ve got some strange persecution complex going on, or you’re using ‘you’ as shorthand for something else.
I’m sorry, I must have just plain missed the part of that quote that calls for the dissolution of the nation-state and a switch over to the individual court systems you advocate. Could you point it out to me? I did notice comments on libertarian.org like “The ideas that we call libertarian (e.g., individual liberty, constitutionally-limited government, the rule of law, private property, and free markets)” and the ‘next page’ on the intro which heaps praise upon the founding fathers of the US.
The really damning, point, though, is that on http://www.libertarian.org/movement.html , the very web site you quoted says “Although a majority of libertarians do believe that a limited government is probably necessary to carry out certain essential functions such as criminal justice and national defense, individualist anarchists (or “anarcho-capitalists”) believe there is nothing that cannot be done (or even done better) voluntarily.” I think it’s pretty damn clear that the details of your version of libertarianism (in particular, the ‘dissolve the nation-state’ bit)
Bullshit. You want to pretend that the word ‘libertarian’ is not used in the manner which it is used, and don’t mind making pointless side arguments to do it. If I’m trampling on the language, why does the page YOU CITED say that the majority of libertarians believe that a state is neccesary and that only a minority of the group, termed individualist anarchists (or “anarcho-capitalists” - remember when I used that term earlier?) call for all government functions to be handled by private companies.
Their ‘solutions’ amount to ‘just sell it off to someone in some manner’, as I told you in the previous post - I think you’re the one that’s lying or blind. That’s not a plan from moving from here to there, that’s an afterthought tossed into the paper for completeness - and I feel safe in calling something mentioned only twice in a long paper an ‘afterthought’.
I apologize for using a word in its normal sense, I am aware of the Libertarian concept that all rights are property rights despite the fact that the term normally refers only to physical property and not individual rights.
I doubt you’ll deign to answer, since you haven’t yet, but HOW DOES IT DETERMINE WHAT IS THE PROPERTY OF ITS CITIZENS? Do I just walk in and lay claim to anything I want?
“I honestly don’t know whether you’re lying or blind.” The pit thread in question involved a long debate with no flaming aside from some jokes from people who were annoyed that a GD thread was in the pit. Rather than cite it again, I’ll ressurect the argument in another thread since I’ve done enough hijacking on this one. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=141994