Which is true; dead people don’t buy much water. The free market works!
The zombie-virus creation companies all go out of business in days! Don’t dis the invisible hand.
Why do you think whoever made the best sandwiches at the best price would make the most money? I’m supplying a poorer clientele, plus some fragments of a richer clientele. (You’re not going to argue that, I hope?) while the more exclusive store is supplying a richer clientele.
Quick question for you libertarian folks.
Boss threatens to fire all his female employees if they don’t have sex with him, as is normal some of his employees can’t afford to lose their jobs.
Should the government intervene?
Well he’d be silly to do so in that manner. If he simply discriminated against women who would not have sex with him he’d be on much better legal grounds. Put a sign up saying slutty women only and your good.
Well as is now that too would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
In Libertaria? No. The employer is free to hire or fire anyone for any reason, as long as it does not violate a contact they have. Of course, employees could insist on a no-sex-with-the-boss clause in their contract if that was a big concern before being hired.
And this is one of the reasons it’s hard to take libertarian ideas seriously.
Take communism, for example, a similar extreme ideology that requires its holder to assume that people practicing it will behave in ways that are … well … not human. If we were all saints then maybe we could live in a worker’s utopia. But in practice we know that communism leads to corruption, cronyism, and brutal repression.
However, the Russians and the Chinese did demonstrate that you could apply it on a large scale and get a functioning society. They were inefficient, cruel societies, but they managed to creak along for decades before their many flaws brought them down. Communism is a crappy way to run a country, but it still managed to beat Hitler and put the first man in space.
But libertarianism is unable to even point to a single real-world example of how it would function in practice. Not a country, not a state, not a city. If libertopia would be so superior to what we have now, let the libertarians demonstrate it on a small scale. Run a medium-sized city like Nashville or Phoenix or Des Moines on libertarian principles for a decade and show the world the power of your ideas. But without an example of how it would work in practice, it’s just wankery.
This seems to be typical of the sort of magical thinking of libertarians. In Libertaria, employees have enough bargaining power to modify their employment contracts in their favour. And if not, there’s always another employer out there offering a better job with better terms and more enlightened policies.
Meanwhile, in the real world, most jobs are a take-it-or-leave-it proposition where any negotiations massively favour the employer (at least in the absence of organized labour), and some crappy job for a sexist rapist pig of an employer might be the best or only one that’s available.
If the libertarian ideal is that employees individually insist on safe working conditions free from sexual predation, etc, can they explain how in the pre-workplace regulation and union era mines, factories, dockyards, etc got away with appalling working conditions for centuries? Why didn’t the market correct that? Why didn’t the labourers just go work for someone else?
In United States system fucks you
But, in Libertaria you fuck the system!
ETA: Sorry I’ll have a serious contribution later.
So as I understand the libertarian position on fraud, unclean water, sexual harassment, and pretty much everything else in life, is summed up by the position of the mob in the poem, “An Ambulance Down in the Valley.”
Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant;
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A duke, and full many a peasant.
The people said something would have to be done,
But their projects did not at all tally.
Some said, “Put a fence 'round the edge of the cliff,”
Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.” . . .
But the cry for the ambulance carried the day
As it spread through the neighboring city.
A collection was made, to accumulate aid,
And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave dollars or cents - not to furnish a fence -
But an ambulance down in the valley. . . .
Said one, to his peers, “It’s a marvel to me
That you’d give so much greater attention
To repairing results than to curing the cause;
You had much better aim at prevention.
For the mischief, of course, should be stopped at its source,
Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally.
It is far better sense to rely on a fence
Than an ambulance down in the valley.”
“He is wrong in his head,” the majority said;
"He would end all our earnest endeavor.
He’s a man who would shirk his responsible work,
But we will support it forever.
Aren’t we picking up all, just as fast as they fall,
And giving them care liberally?
A superfluous fence is of no consequence,
If the ambulance works in the valley. . . .
Of course, in the poem, the majority doesn’t claim that a fence would be an affront to the Constitution, Freedom, Apple Pie, and Thomas Jefferson. Only nanny statists would support a fence… unless there’s a profit to be made in it.
You forgot to capitalize “Libertarians” in your first sentence. 
Also, keep in mind that early industrialists were typically in collusion with the government to suppress unions. As Adam Smith noted:
The system we have now is the result of a reaction to a system in which the government was vastly on the side of the rich and powerful. Had the government taken a more neutral role from the beginning, I don’t see that it’s unreasonable to expect that an organic development of labor unions would have evolved more quickly to address exactly the issue you raise. They did, in fact, try to, but were largely repressed by the government.
Or, it could be negotiated. A bonus system, based on either quality or quantity, but only as an extra bonus that does not jeopardize the basic “work package”. On the flip side, ugly bosses have to pay bigger bonuses, because, well, they’re fucking ugly 
But labour unions are largely ineffective unless they can form a monopoly or near-monopoly on the labour for a given employer. They achieved that by means of physical coercion - beating the crap out of scabs. Nowadays the government enforces their monopoly.
I don’t see how organized labour can become powerful enough to counter large employers in Libertaria even if government adopts a neutral stance. They won’t get the labour laws mandating their monopoly, and they won’t be able to use physical coercion to enforce it themselves.
You don’t really understand libertarianism if you think Somalia is close. Protection of fundamental rights is absolutely necesary and emphasized within libertarianism - it’s not anarchy.
Libertarians are big on contracts, consenting adults, and all that. Because there would be fewer regulations, there’d be a bigger emphasis on contractual obligations and dealing in good faith. Fraud would be a very serious issue.
Interesting. So you grudgingly think it should be allowed, but would refuse to support an organization that advocated for it, even though you’re saying it’s valid?
Something I’m curious about. You’re sure I’m a racist. Ok. But there are multiple protected classes enshrined in the civil rights act. How are you so sure that blacks are the ones I want to hate? What if I’m taking this philosophical position because I actually want the handicapped or Turks or Mormons to be discriminated against? I just want to ban cripples and you dare to sully my good name with accusations of racism!
Seriously, though - if you can logically infer that I support the right of a business owner to decide on who they serve and therefore I’m racist, you must also think I hate people of other nationalities, handicapped, gays, people over 40, hell, even veterans, right? Because they’re just as much protected classes as race is.
I’m not being obtuse. I realize that revoking that law would lead to more racist behavior, and that’s unfortunate. I think allowing hate groups to speak probably leads to more racist behavior too, but in both cases, I think the people have the fundamental right to be dicks in that particular way. I don’t support their position, but I support their right to have it.
On the other hand - how negative are you if you think the only thing keeping us from falling back into 1950s race relations is the civil rights act? I’d like to think we’ve made a little progress in 50 years. If we revoked that part of the act, would racists just be jumping for joy and forcing blacks to the back of the bus on day 1?
This is an issue where pragmatism and idealism split quite a bit - not entirely unlike, say, seat belt and helmet laws where I recognize they do practical good but run afoul of my ideological concerns. It’s not something I would actively persue since there are about 50000 things more important, but I do defend it ideologically. Or, at the very least, I defend the notion that people can believe it for ideological, rather than for secret racist reasons.
I am defending the idea, though - that there are ideological reasons for defending the position. Since you believe that all people who defend the positions are actually racist who hide behind claims of ideology, you must therefore think I’m a racist. Go ahead and say it. Doing this “you believe X, all people that believe X are retards” type of insults are too passive aggressive for my tastes.
I know it for an absolute because you say anyone who advocates that view is a racist, and I’m advocating that view. Since I know I’m not a racist, I can plainly see that your conclusion is false, as much as owning a red honda proves the notion that all hondas are blue false.
To be clear, I think you’re conflating my views with people more extreme than I am. I’m not saying I would be ok with selling contaminated water. I have no problem with the idea of FDA and USDA type organizations existing. Giving people information is always a laudable goal. I’m not one of those types who says “I can figure out which pills to take with my folksy wisdom!” if we had medicines with no regulation whatsoever.
I was just pointing out that the process he described, putting local tap water into bottles and calling it more safe/pure/whatever is fraud, and libertarians don’t like fraud. There have been a lot of claims in this thread that suggest that libertaria would openly encourage con artists - trick anyone anyway you can and you’re good! But libertaria is big on contracts, on good faith dealing. This, along with the Somalia comparisons, make me think that a lot of people here fundamentally understand much about libertarianism.
Personally, by the way, I’m very much a little L libertarian. I don’t subscribe to a lot of what the philosophy emphasizes. Really, I’m mostly someone who wants utmost protection of human rights and the government of the US, particular the federal, to be massively smaller. Libertarian comes closest of the parties to describing my beliefs, but I don’t subscribe wholesale. I even have some beliefs that would have libertarians disown me - for instance, I think a single payer medical system would probably be a significant improvement over the status quo.
And, in practice, it doesn’t work that way with government officials, either. The mayor will pound the podium and vow to Get To the Bottom Of This, and end up blaming some middle manager.
It will usually be forgotten come election time because he did do a hell of a job on fixing those pot holes in front of your house.
If you don’t support free speech for views you despise, you don’t support free speech at all.
Your “principled free speech” stance is just a mask for your hidden racist agenda. I’m onto you.
And if they refused to do so, as was common in the south during Jim Crow, would you send in Federal troops? What authority would you use if no Federal laws were being broken?
I don’t see why a single union needs to have a monopoly. Why couldn’t there be multiple unions negotiating for “market share” within the corporate world the same way corporations fight for market share among consumers.