questions about libertarianism

Great Debates
21

“Bring forward one” of WHAT? No concepts have been posted, thus I cannot refute them. If you go to one of those sites, and look up, say taxes, they say something like “In general, NO is a good answer to that”. Right :rolleyes:
Look, let us limit it to taxes and what the government will provide and how the rest of the stuff govt currently provides will be provided. And I am sorry “in general, NO is a good answer” just begs the question. I want to hear the actual practical way a Libt govt would be run.

Look,liberatarians, I’ve got my guns on, I’m in the middle of the street, and I’m calling you out. Saying “Well, I just had a gunfight last week”, or “In general, violence does not solve anything”, or “My freind is a much better gunfighter than I am”. or “I just washed my hair”, does not cut it. Come out with them sixguns blazing, or admit “yer a lily-livered polecat”.

22

Daniel,

You’re blowing smoke here.

There is no debate if you don’t have any questions. I replied to the OP. I replied to your concerns.

A blanket statement does not make for a debate.

I done with this thread unless someone else comes along that can actually ask a question rather than provide an explanation when I have given him two good links to look up. Read through and then pose a debate.

ACK.

http://www.lp.org http://www.libertarian.org

Got questions about the philosophies? Then ask away.

23

So you can’t refute these “no concepts,” but you want us to explain them? :rolleyes:

Talk about begging the question! Ask yourself this: Do we currently need “the rest of the stuff govt currently provides”? I say we don’t.

A great man once said, “What is practical depends entirely on what you are practicing.”

The practical way a Libertarian government (of whatever construction, be it democracy, monarchy, or otherwise) would be run thus:

  1. Protect its citizens from the initiation of force.
  2. Allow people to decide for themselves whether they want to be governed by that government, and pay for those services that government provides (see 1, above).
  3. Allow property owners to make decisions with respect to their property.
  4. Not engage in diplomacy, road-building, fire-fighting, education, or any of the “stuff that govt currently provides,” instead letting people make those decisions and transactions on their own.

I can’t see what’s so impractical about those.

24

Libertarian ideology seems to have the same attraction that Communism once had a century ago (except for white collar workers as opposed to blue collar). It sounds good but it won’t hold up in practice and I think this is what Daniel is railing against.

And then…

Oops! See what heppens here? This is how Techchick’s taxes go from 8% to 47%. Everyone (even two self-described Libertarians) has a different idea of what should or shouldn’t be paid for so you get entitlements creeping in all over the place.

So, you might say, we cut through that nonsense and create a die-hard Libertarian government that pays for nothing except military, judicial (police, judges, etc.) and a minimal amount to support the main government. Everything else is paid for by citizens for what they use. Beyond that government is a hands off entity.

What about schools?

First off I’d say Techchick’s faith in humanity may be a bit optimistic. Although the schools are public in Illinois they are supported mainly through local property taxes. Essentially people DO get what they pay for. If you wish to live in a highly taxed area and have good schools AND you can afford it then that’s your choice. If you’re poor, and have no choice where you live, your kids go to crap schools. Here’s the clincher though…not only do people NOT donate to schools very much (which they can do if they wished) but they fight tooth and nail from letting their money leave their district to support a less fortuante school district. So, it seems, in reality people’s humanity does not extend far beyond immediate interests.

Some may say that this is perfectly acceptable. If the rich PAY for extra services (via taxes in this case) then they deserve extra return. However, the poor only now get an education because of government mandates. Turn that off (Libertarian ideal) and you will certainly turn off the education hopes of a SIGNIFICANT portion of the populace. Now you are left with an enormous underclass that is perpetually stuck in poverty because they can NEVER afford to pay for education. I’m sure a few schools would offer scholarships to underpriviledged to assuage the wealthy guilt but it’d put nary a dent in the overall problem (it barely manages to dent it today even with mandated education).

Pay for fire protection as you please? Don’t think that would work either. You pay to support the fire department and your neighbor doesn’t (don’t say you wouldn’t live next to those people…maybe they did pay and just lost their job and had to cut something). Now, your neighbor’s house catches on fire. Now, their house on fire is their problem but YOUR house is in danger of burning too! What happens? The fire department comes out and hoses down your house while your neighbors house burns? Do they put out the neighbors house to protect yours essentially giving them free fire protection? Do you send a family a bill to pay for the fire protection after their house just burned down? If you send them the bill and they don’t pay who bears the cost? (Last question is rhetorical…you, the person who pays, pays for it.)

What about corporate oversight? The Libertarian ideal would have a strictly hands-off approach to business. Unfortunately, without antitrust laws and a few others business drifts into HUGE conglomerates that, left unchecked, end up controlling most everything. Don’t believe me? Look to history and the J.P Morgan’s and Rockefellers and where the country was heading before anti-trust laws. Read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair to see what happens before labor and workers rights laws are enacted. If you have or do read The Jungle the notion of good humanity espoused by Techchick seems to take a dive. Quite simply, left to themselves with no big brother (government) to keep them in check corporations WILL screw the workers. The nature of capitalism practically demands this result in the absence of artificial curbs in the form of laws.

I’ll leave this post at this for now. Re-reading it I sound like a communist but for what it’s worth I am a die-hard capitalist. I agree that government is co-opted at every turn for every special interest group you can think of. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and no one wants to pay for it. The Libertarian ideal is attractive because it seeks to cutout all the crap and that’s an ideal I can stand behind. Unfortunately it’s easier said than done and I don’t see how any realist could think for a moment that a Libertarian government could exist in pure form any more than a Communist one could.

25

Incorrect.

Wherever there is coercion or fraud, including business dealings, the hands of a libertarian government will be most decidedly and strictly hands-on.

26

You don’t think there would be some group of people who would help to educate the underpriveleged, or some corporation who would find a profitable market in offering low-cost education to the poor? Absent the enormous cost of meeting DoE guidelines and satisfying the education unions, what do you think the cost per pupil of a K-12 education might be?

This is entirely possible. Although, were my neighbor’s house on fire, I would pay the fire protection service to put it out and I bet you would too. Especially if they had recently fallen on hard times. What kind of stupid person allows his neighbor’s house to burn right next to his, not only exhibiting a massive lack of empathy and compassion, but making bad neighbors to boot?

Perhaps the fire protection service puts out the neighbor’s house as a charitable act. It’s good public relations.

Why not? Hospitals send you bills after they amputate your leg, don’t they?

Besides, if the fire protection actually provided the service for which they are billing, why did the house burn down?

. . . and if they have enough people who don’t pay (although if that household is not in a contract with the fire protection service, I can’t imagine they have any legal obligation to pay), then their prices go up, and at the end of your contract you are free to go to a competing, cheaper service.

I think the fact that someone as unsophisticated as I am can conceive of solutions demonstrates that reasonable solutions are possible. Some people, unfortunately, cannot seem to divorce themselves from the one-stop-government-shopping mindset to which Americans are accustomed.

27

Cool, that’s at least one easier pill to swallow then.

Can you be more specific on how ‘hands-on’ works? Do anti-trust laws remain? How about worker rights? Do agencies like OSHA remain? How about protections on worker’s rights to organize (labor unions)? Does a Libertarian government step in when Air Traffic controllers go on strike and force them back to work? Does a Libertarian government bail out a HUGE company like Chrysler if they’re going under because the economic ripple effect is considered too damaging to the economy as a whole if they’re left to sink? How does the government deal with farmers?

I’m not trying to be pedantic. I’d really like to know. Some aspects of Libertarianism I’ve liked for a long time but I have a hard time resolving some issues.

28

What you came up with are not solutions.

See alot of this in Africa do you? How about Central America or take your pick of poor countries. Certainly there are organizations that do go to these countries and offer educational services but as I said it is woefully inadequate to the task.

As for low-cost education to the poor there are going to be some poor who CHOOSE to not spend ANY money on education. Tough luck for their kids. Read the Chicago newspaper for a few months and you’ll come across children found living in their own crap in a one room house while the parents are on the street looking for drugs (I’m not making that up either).

Great. Thanks! I hope I live next to you when this happens so I can save myself some money. Do you honestly believe there aren’t people (a significant number of people) who would forgo paying for fire protection when they know the fire department will come anyway? How do you stop this? Publish the names of non-payers (breach of privacy) and run them out of town if they don’t get in line? Sorry but that world’s not for me.

Sure…in fact some fire departments DO charge if they come to your house to put out a fire. This is especially true in unincorporated areas.

Also, if you think everytime the fire department responds to a house fire a house is saved think again. Sometimes the house is saved…sometimes not. Even if you aren’t burned to the ground you now have massive water damage unless the fire was contained in your trashcan. Not a pretty sight.

This is the best one of all. Competeing fire departments? What, like competing pizza delivery stores? You expect one every two blocks? Worse yet, a fire starts, Company A responds but before it gets there the fire spreads to two more houses. Company B and C respond to their respective houses but Company A has the fire hydrants tied up. Now what happens? Company A takes care of all of them and collects? Fine…guess who’s house gets saved first and how do you feel, owner of house 2 who pays for protection, to watch your house burn?

Sorry but that doesn’t work.

29

Jeff_42: I’m not a libertarian so I can’t answer with the authority that a libertarian would, but from reading various libertarian threads, I can guess that the following answers could be given to your questions:

[ul]
[li]Some libertarians will say: No, no, no, no, no, no and “it doesn’t”.[/li][li]Others might say - It works whichever way you want it to.[/li][li]Others will say - freedom from coercion is the only law. Figure it out.[/li][/ul]

From what I’ve read of Libertarian ideals as explained on the SDMB, my personal impression is that libertarians are political “luddites” who want to return to the days of american or english society of 150 or 200 years ago in the sense that there was no strong federal government in the USA in 1776. Initially it sounds appealing, nostalgia is a powerful inducement, but it is naive and impractical and ignores the complexities of governing a large country such as the USA.

30

Wow. I can see why you get to wear a moderator hat. You said everything I was trying to get at in a tenth of the space. I especially like the ‘political Luddites’ term. I’ll have to remember that one.

31

In my perpetual role of advocatus diaboli (and I’m getting a little tired of it, especially on the Islam threads), I offer a link to Mike Huben’s Critiques of Libertarianism site.

32

Heavens to Murgatroid . . . if these questions regarding voluntary relations between peaceful honest people are so difficult to suss out, perhaps we should simply not consider them at all!

I sometimes wonder how Lib keeps his sanity, although I suppose that’s begging the question. :wink:

Since you were asking how Libertarians would do things, why are you asking me about Africa and Central America? Did I wake up on a planet where countries in those regions are Libertarian?

Here’s a thought: Since a Libertarian government does not claim eminent domain over your home or any of the property surrounding it, does not build roads or infrastructure, and does not control what does and does not attach to said property, what’s to prevent some enterprising person from placing on his property a large reservoir, pumps to maintain adequate pressure, and several dozen fireplugs for specifically this eventuality?

Critiques against Libertarianism always appear to center around the idea that most other people are insufferably cruel, stupid, uninventive and shortsighted. These same people are the ones you apparently trust to elect legislators (presumably from the same pool of cruel, stupid, etc.) to make decisions on your behalf. Yikes.

33

And even though links in this thread seem to be a waste of time, I offer Critiques of Critiques of Libertarianism to make Kim’s post a bit more even-handed.

Jeff42

In some cases, I can. If the question is specific, the answer can be. I will give you two sets of answers. One short, and one less short.

Short answer: Maybe, sort of.

Less short answer: Only one law, guaranteeing the citizens’ freedom from coercion and fraud, is necessary, but if there are other laws, they are all merely various expressions of the same principle, namely, that you have the right, so long as you are peaceful and honest, to pursue your own happiness in your own way, free from the coercion and fraud of others. If you own a business and all the free people in the world willingly buy your product and yours alone, and you have conducted your business peacefully and honestly, then there is no ethical basis upon which government may interfere in your affairs.

Short answer: Rights are an attribute of property.

Less short answer: You have the right to work or to do anything else you please, so long as you leave other people free to do as they please. Necessarily, that means that no one can coerce or defraud anyone else, because those are methods to bend your will. Therefore, though you have the right to work, you have no right to force another person to employ you. Of course, you have the right to start a business and when you do, no one will have the right to make you hire them.

Short answer: Sort of.

Less short answer: Government is contracted with you, and has guaranteed to secure your rights. It may not force you to be governed by it against your consent. But your side of the contract is to refrain from coercion and fraud. Whatever agencies exist will be to arbitrate and enforce that principle.

Short answer: Yes, but with a “twist”.

Less short answer: Anyone may pursue his own happiness in his own way, so long as he conducts his affairs peacefully and honestly. That includes organizing unions or other interests. But you have no right to the lives and property of other people, just as they have no right to yours. Therefore, on your own time and property, you may organize workers to strike in a massive walk-out if you like. Your employer must then decide what is in the best interest of his investors (or his family if he is a small business sole proprietor).

Short answer: No.

Less short answer: Hell no.

Short answer: No.

Less short answer: The purpose of a libertarian government is very narrowly focused (which is one reason it need not be a bloated behemoth). It secures each of its citizens from coercion and fraud from whatever source — foreign or domestic. It doesn’t bail anyone out of anything but coercion and fraud.

Short answer: Like everyone else.

Less short answer: It secures the right of farmers to make their own decisions with respect to their lives and property, so long as they conduct their affairs peacefully and honestly.

There is really only one aspect to libertarianism; namely, its ethic of noncoercion. If you’re looking for a problem-solving Father Government, libertarianism ain’t it. All libertarianism offers you is a context of peace and honesty. For those of us who love libertarianism, that single offering would solve the vast majority of our problems in one fell swoop.

34

Phil

:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

35

Sigh. Jeff has got the right idea. What I am saying is that a libt govt is completely impractical, and will not work. In other words, I am tired of hearing in a thread on taxes say, “well, in a Libt govt there would be almost no taxes”, without showing us how a libt govt would work with virtually no taxes. Or that welfare is stupid and wasteful and that in a libt govt “private charity would pay for all that”. Why do you just not admit it- you are all unwilling to post, here, how a “practical” libt govt would work in the real world, as you are concerned over our health- you don’t want us to bust a gut laughing.

Ok, if you folks won’t, I will. Let us start with that private charity thing. You have stated that welfare, social security, food stamps, and diability are all unnessesary because “private charity” will do all that, more efficiantly, and that releived of crippling taxes, we will all pour $$ into their coffers. Right :rolleyes: 1st- those with the most disposable income, the filthy rich, already give a lower % than do the middle class. We have Larry Ellison here in town, and he is a perfect example of what happens when you pile too much money in one place- it stinks. He is arrogant, and always spending big bucks on toys. Oh, for the publicity, he has written a big check or 2, but he gives a tiny % of his income. But you say, he is “crippled” by taxes. Ok, lets look at those countries with NO personal citizen taxes at all, like Kuwait, and some islands. They are relieved of 'crippling" taxes, and Kuwait has got a huge number of millionaire. Are they known for their charity? No, in fact they are known for being cheap. So, can you shaow that in any of these low tax havens, charitable giving has increased 5-10 times, as it would have to in the US? No. And you know why not? Too many folks are greedy bastards. Libt is not gonna change human nature.

Oh, and private charities are so much more efficiant than the Gov’t? Well, the govt spends about $2 to give away $1, not so good. But there are many charities that spend only 10% of their take on actual giving. Good ratios are spend $1 to give $1, but few make that ratio. We get this wonderful “Combined federal Campaign” brochure, where we can give $$ automatically out of our checks. Most of the hundreds of charitys have about the same ratio as the Gov’t.
So, they are not much more efficiant, if at all.

yep, just as I said, without the Gov’t, we would have seniors starving to death in droves. Handicapped folks having no help, and single moms being unable to feed their babies. Yep, that’s sure a “moral” system. :rolleyes:

36

Well, see, that’s exactly it. I don’t believe that most people are “insufferably cruel, stupid, uninventive and shortsighted.” Just a few. Just enough, in fact, to ruin things for the rest of us (mostly through stupidity and shortsightedness as opposed to cruel or uninventive). To be clear, I very much want the State to coerce my neighbor into building his apartment building from fire-proof materials on the outside and fire-resistant materials on the inside. For one thing, it’s a heck of a lot easier and less violent than if I have to do it myself, which I would do in a second if there weren’t a tit-sucking government to do it for me. Working within “toppling distance” of the World Trade Center, I personally am grateful that the Evil Nanny[sup]TM[/sup] made them put in some extra support columns. (In fairness, that particular building was itself a government enterprise, but I think my point is clear.)

I don’t for a second believe that the folks who build the Triangle Shirtwaste factory actually wanted to kill all those people, or that Union Carbide intended to kill all those people. Hell, even with the documentation, I don’t believe that Ford actually intended the Pinto to explode on impact. But you’re damn skippy that I want to coerce future builders of factories and chemical plants and automobiles to cotton to some standard.

In a democracy, the standards not infrequently are too stringent or not stringent enough or even focus on the wrong problems. But it’s still better, IMO, than no standard or a standard which allows my neighbors to seek out the most permissive government for their short-sighted purposes.

37

Libertarian-

Have you read the work of David Friedman, and Murray N Rothbard? If so, I assume you are familiar with anarcho-capitalism. What do you find wrong with this particular sect of libertarianism?

38

Ah, the famous "Noncoercion"aspect. Ok, so I’ll imagine a Libt gov’t. Some small island decides it wants a Lib’t gov’t- YAY!! So the gov’t agent hotfoot it around to all to have them sign the famous “contract”. But some guy says NO!. You explain to him that his taxes are less, etc, but he still says no. So, you have 2 choice, let him live there on the island, free of any responsibilities, etc, or make him leave. Hmm, let me look that up in the ol’ dictionary…Yep- That is COERCION. Hmm, haven’t got off to a very good start, all the natives must sign the Contract or leave. But we’ll do better as we go along…NOT.

Now it is taxtime. Since the taxes pay for only the military & the police, the taxes are very low. But still some yayhoo refuses to pay. He says its against his religion to pay. What are ya gonna do? Let the next island over invade JUST HIM? Riiight. :rolleyes: Let him go without paying–riiight, and then nobody else wants to pay. So, you FORCE him to pay, or FORCE him to leave. umm, let me check that again, yep coercion. Oh, but you say we don’t force him at gunpoint, we just sue him, he signed a CONTRACT. He tells you where to stuff that contract. So he refuses to pay, again. So you levy his bank account- -coercion. You take his car…coercion.

Like it or not, we run nearly everything with coercion somewhere down the line. Refuse to pay your creditors? So they sue and get a judgeement, and then, eventually, you are COERCED into paying.

39

And your way of proving this point is to ask libertarians to show how all problems humanity faces are solved in a libertarian context. Well, I’m going to be honest here, we don’t know. I have no more idea of how to solve all the world’s problems than you do. That does not stop me from believing that it is unethical to initiate force or fraud under any circumstances.

I also have noticed a general trend over the course of recorded history of free markets being successful. I have also noticed a trend of governments fucking with people. I notice that when people believe that they have an ethical right to initiate force against others, the results can be very bad, such as when when Germany decided that the need for lebensraum gave it the ethical right to attempt to conquer all of Europe. The results of governmental cruelty and malfeasence grossly overshadow events such as Bhopal, in my opinion.

Thus, based on my ethical beliefs and my view of human history, I have decided that libertarianism is the ideal context for people to exist in.

As to the example dealing with the small island posted above, first I should point out that a libertarian context is far more likely to not work in a small society than in a large one. Market forces work in vastly dissimilar ways on an isolated island than they do in, say, Hong Kong, which is about as close as you can get to an isolated libertarian outpost.

Now on to what is unrealistic about the example. Someone who does not sign the contract would not be eligible for any of the protections that are provided by the government. If this person ever felt that force or fraud were initiated upon him, he would have no legal recourse. It would seem to me that it would be in his best interest to sign the contract, just as it would be in his best interest to do his part to defend the island if it were invaded.

I suppose the guy could be a complete idiot and still not sign the contract. In which case his presence really isn’t harming anyone, especially since they aren’t going to be offering him any of the services they agree to provide themselves.

If he has signed the contract freely, then refuses to honor it, the government is justified in taking whatever action is required to get him to comply with it. This is not considered coercion. Libertarians like the idea of contractual government because in signing the contract you agree to the consequences of not following it. How can it be coercion if you have already agreed, in writing, signed and notarized, that the other party can take steps to force your compliance should you withhold it?

40

Nothing. If a man is peaceful and honest, he should be allowed to be governed (or not) in whatever manner he sees fit.

Perhaps the gentleman is incapable of discerning among types of force.

So wrong standards are better than no standards? God help us.

Perhaps your neighbors actually are wise, and any short-sighted purposes are your own. At any rate, if your government protects your from your neighbor’s coercion, why do you feel you must live your neighbor’s life for him? How fortunate is the man whose own life is solved, and who has time to make decisions for other men!

If you are the one to say how we all must live, then you have set up yourself as the standard. I submit your neighbors have at least as much to fear from you as you do from them.