Thank you for this moment of clarity. It is my contention that:
unfortunately, it is difficult to make the money to purchase food, healthcare, and a standard of living when one is starving, sick, and/or frozen out of the job market due to economic and political forces in the grip of people who don’t care about you. In other words, those who do not have enough food or healthcare are lacking opportunity to begin with, not failing to exploit the opportunity they have.
therefore, the necessaries of life, for example food and healthcare, are part of equality of opportunity, not just things that equality of opportunity will permit us to buy.
societies exist for the purpose of serving the common weal, which includes providing equality of opportunity for its citizens.
“it is against natural law and against humanity that millions of individuals are denied the necessary in order to feed the scandalous luxury of a small number of comfortable citizens.” - Denis Diderot, “Fortune”, Encyclopédie
“If a man is young and is not a liberal, he has no heart; if a man is old and is not a conservative, he has no head.” – I. Forgot
If you want to question my circumstances, matt, go right ahead. Be my guest. But I will hardly be called a snob by an effete socialist who wants to live in FantasyLand, and drag everyone else kicking and screaming.
Out of curiosity (although you’ve yet to answer a directly-posed question), who are the “rich”? My wife and I grossed in the neighborhood of $70,000 last year–are we “rich”?
pulky: I make no claims that the playing field is currently level. I merely question some people’s plans for making it level. The answer, IMHO, is not to steal from the “rich”; it’s to make it easier for the poor to become rich, or at least successful. Part of the way to do that is to remove restrictions to education (in the form of school vouchers), and stop teaching that the government is going to solve all your problems. People solve problems, and given the freedom to make choices, they will always come up with a better solution than a top-down government will.
I don’t have a right “to survive”. And, in fact, I don’t expect to. I have a right to life. That is not to say I have a right to be provided with it; I have a right not to have it taken away.
We can’t use anything to guarantee that people won’t starve to death. We can use tools to try to minimize the occurence, and I’m not against it. I just think that the government is a terrible tool for that purpose. You assume that since Libertarians don’t want the government giving out food, that they don’t want anyone giving out food.
More likely, you couldn’t find one you would deign to work for.
No, you’re more free when your dead. At that point, no one can take anything from you, or hurt you, or force you to do anything. The problem is that you want to raise the freedom of some over the freedom of others. Thus, one man is free to have money that was forcibly taken from another, but not vice versa. The core of Libertarian thought is “equal protection”, not equal outcomes. We can try to equalize outcomes, but we should not use the government to do it.
pulykamell:
No. I imagine a lot of people feel that way. Of course, some do not. My point is not what society should do, but what government should do. Government is the wrong tool to achieve this end.
Why would I say any of those things. Of course we don’t have equal opportunity, and we never will. It is not achievable. What we strive for is equal protection under the law. Granting some different protections than others does not provide equal opportunity.
SingleDad:
I’ll say this: When you get ready to make a ridiculous statemtent, you sure do it with conviction. I think Hitler referred to this approach as “the big lie”.
The problem with this is your still thinking along the lines of your “thought experiment”, which I explained needed a little more thought. No system of government can completely protect every citizen from exploitation. However, your example doesn’t achieve it, and here’s why: Two people against a whole community cannot exploit the community purely based on economics–they must also use force. Libertarianism cannot prevent a sufficiently large group of people from exploiting a sufficiently small group. The difference is that, with Libertarianism, the exploitative group does not have a tool of force that is outside the boundaries of law (the government) that can be wielded against those it wishes to exploit.
You rail against the rich. It’s a popular position to take. After all, there are a lot more poor and middle-class people than there are rich people. Your governmental theory allows the rich to be exploited by the rest. Libertarianism does not. And a small group of rich people cannot exploit a population under Libertarianism–there’s just not enough of them. In order to create an example of it, you are required to make such ridiculous assumptions like “people cannot catch rain water in buckets”.
You obviously do not know the difference between power in general and governmental power. Libertarianism is not plutocracy because the rich are not the government. A rich person may have more ability to influence others, but he cannot rule them. To do that would require force. That’s the whole point: No one, rich or poor, should be able to exert the kind of force that government represents against their fellow humans.
I will not waste time arguing about things that are in direct conflict with Libertarian principles (slavery, etc.).
That’s right. No one can be completely free. Libertarianism just tries to spread the freedom around equally. Thus, while no one is completely free, no one is more, or less, protected than any other. You prefer for the majority to dictate who is allowed what level of freedom. That’s fine–but don’t even try to act like you are being more fair.
You’re example is pitiful, but you’re right this far: Under Libertarianism, the government is not an agency of correction. The people are. Just like in any other system based on notions of freedom. Your system requires the majority to be the agency of correction. It’s easy to pose an example where that system falls down: There are 5 geniuses and 95 average people. The five geniuses are able to get rich with their systems for producing water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, and pepperoni pizzas. The other people are never able to be rich because their products aren’t as profitable or as desired by others. Some of them are barely able to make enough to survive. Finally, they get together and vote to amend the Constitution so that geniuses, who have an unnatural “excess” of opportunity at birth, no longer receive the same liberty protections as others. Having made that amendment, they enact a law that the geniuses are required to work 10 hours per day, 6 days a week to provide their services, but are only allowed to be paid a subsistence income.
Your system would call this situation “good”.
You tried to pose a problem that required a political solution. We pointed out that no political solution was necessary, and you got mad.
Elite, indeed. In fact, Libertarianism asserts that only an individual is capable of making judgments for him/herself. Can’t get any more elite than that, can you?
Who is this elite you’re talking about? Libertarianism expects most everyone to make rational judgments. That’s why for your thought experiment to work, you had to rely on people making irrational judgments.
Where’s the Libertarian context? If I’m already contracted at birth, that’s a social democratic context.
Or by natural disaster or freak accident. These aren’t forces of Libertarianism. And their power does not come from Libertarian policies.
And it’s amazing to me to think that someone as erudite as yourself doesn’t understand the difference between having some members of a group do something and having the group decide, as a whole, that they all will do it.
Alrighty then. I guess you are providing examples of reasoned argument:
Yes, these are exactly the kind of things I expect to see from someone who is arguing reasonably.
The “natural” outcome I referred to was specialization. You seem to think it requires a group decision. Seems to me that the only way a group would decide to specialize is if a majority of them wanted to. In a Libertarian context, instead of a group decision, a majority would specialize and some minority would not. The “natural” part is people seeking increased efficiency. If they don’t do it in a Libertarian context, they won’t do it in any other.
Gee, let’s see. I’m a generalist. That means I have enough water to meet my needs. Now, Bill and Ted are charging a house for a glass of water. That means I can forego one glass of water a day and easily get a lovely chocolate cake for it, or a glass of milk, or an extra cow. Indeed, why would I want to do that? In fact, I think I would be tempted to curtail my other efforts and start specializing in just making water. Would thinking that to be a rational decision make me a member of an elite?
Gee, you said before they were selling water; now they are leasing it? For your thought experiment to be valid, you’re going to have to stick to one set of rules, start to finish. What are the conditions of the lease? Do they lease bathwater, too? Do they own all the water that is currently incorporated in my cells? You think this is Libertarian?
Sure I can. Look at market examples: The less government involvement, the faster efficiency and wealth increases. The more government involvement, the less efficiency increases and the more wealth disappears. To posit that a completely Libertarian system works is an extrapolation, but a valid one. The only real assumption required is that people will work the hardest for the things they want the most.
Under Libertarianism, you always have your freedom. You can only increase your wealth by making rational decisions. Specialization is generally good for efficiency, but it is not the best choice in every case. Libertarianism allows both specialization and generalization, at the decision of the individual.
I find your “heavy sarcasm” very similar to your “reasoned debate”.
To say things happen “naturally” is just a convenient way of expressing it, based on the assumption that you will remember previous parts of the discussion from one minute to the next. Things actually happen because people want them to happen badly enough to work to make them happen. Since people naturally strive to be more efficient, they naturally tend to gravitate toward specialization. Since Libertarianism allows them the freedom to do this, specialization happens naturally.
If the rich are going to tyrannize, they are going to limited in their success, as they only have economic weapons to work with. In your system, theoretically, they can use their money to influence government and thus tyrannize people using the force of the government to violate their rights.
Your reduction of waterj2’s definition of “rights” to “focused on property” shows a reasoning capacity that I expect often leads to incomprehension.
By deliberately ignoring some of our arguments and misrepresenting others, you reduce every one of your statements to usupported assertions. We don’t feel that we must convince you. We are Libertarians–we support your right to hold whatever idiotic beliefs you like.
Making sure to clear the area before the other participants can point out his errors.
Ooh, we can’t completely fix the problem, so why try? I believe I mentioned how pathetic that was. The point of guaranteeing such a right is to give a standard to work up to and to acknowledge failure whenever people starve to death (as opposed to dismissing it entire).
Weapons which are quite powerful enough, thank you. Or had you failed to notice?
I apologize for my comments above, matt. Although I have enormous differences with your philosophy, attacking you personally isn’t going to help either of us understand the other better. I am stressed enough from putting together my move next month that I am doing too much talking and not enough thinking. Peace?
I’ve been thinking about this a great deal, pl, and I’m starting to think that what we have here is a cultural difference that cannot be sensibly debated.
Americans fought a bloody war against the British Crown for their independence. They currently have a system of government in which some 80% of the population do not bother to vote. Americans are in general disinclined to trust any government; to consider government a thing separate from the people; and to seek to curtail its power at every opportunity. They are more private.
Canadians were essentially abandoned by their colonial masters, our country dismissed as a few acres of snow. We evolved our own system of government from what was left to us by two distant and uncaring parents. From the refusal to follow Lord Durham’s report through Prime Minister Laurier through Tommy Douglas, the CCF, and the birth of medicare, we fought for governments that would provide for the people. Canadians prefer in general to force the governments to give them what they want; rather than to curtail government intervention in their affairs, they wish to force government to intervene in their affairs the way they want it to. They are more public.
I am not writing this as a moral judgment, merely as a reading of history. Both have strengths and weaknesses. And heaven knows that having been raised in a given culture, it’s quite difficult to understand how someone could tolerate so different a common sense.
Obviously, I prefer the Canadian way of life; I fight quite vigorously to preserve the Canadian way of life and to keep the American one on the other side of the border.
However, having participated in this thread, I have a new appreciation for how deeply rooted the American beliefs are; not simply self-serving amorality as I had felt previously, but rather a matter of culture and history.
This paragraph completely contradicts everything I’ve been told about Libertarianism. Please provide a cite from Ayn Rand or any serious Libertarian philosopher that supports this interpretation.
But there’s a contradition. A person can demand water (& food, etc.) without offering resources. He can correctly claim that withholding such will lead to his death and is therefore inherently coercive by the above definition. Since Libertarianism (and common sense) does not permit such parasitism, more elaborate mechanisms (such as Democracy) are required to evaluate specific cases of parasitism vs. exploitation.
Again you assert your political morality as fact. It is the continued presence of these statements leads me to believe you are a propagandist, not a debater.
Good! You’ve agreed that Libertarianism permits unrestricted economic exploitation!
Do you understand the nature of a thought experiment? It’s not meant to be completely realistic. You create a simplified situation to highlight a feature of a theory; in this case the Libertarian response to economic exploitation (as opposed to oppression by brute force). But you answered its essential nature above. Unrestricted economic exploitation is permissible by Libertarian theory. Since economic exploitation has a high value for the exploiter, it becomes highly rational for an individual to pursue a strategy that will give him the economic power to enable exploitation.
It came from your assertion that a democratic government would eventually fail from short-sightedness. Actually, I overstepped; the hypocrisy is not Libertarian, just your own. I made a hasty generalization, and I apologize.
No, I did not bring up those instances as a direct criticism of Libertarianism. I brought them up to prove that a group of people can collude to derive immoral beneft from a larger group.
The US has open borders. You may leave any time you wish. Your continued presence implies your consent. You are perfectly free to criticize the government and suggest radical changes, but you may not truthfully claim that your consent is being violated without those changes.
The last sentence is the key. Property rights become decided by the whim of the economic ruling class (Bill & Ted), not by consensual economic agreements.
As I have pointed out, the capability of people to use whatever means possible for oppression and exploitation is hardly implausible; rather it is ubitquitous.
Firstly slavery and violence were offered as examples that people commonly collude to pursue oppression and exploitation in general; these are not Libertarian failings. But, because Libertarianism specifically fails to prohibit this common strategy pursued through economic dominance rather than violent force, the argument that Libertarianism can lead to a de facto condition of slavery is therefore valid.
Gilligan:
I know no such thing. If such conditions are implemented through economic power rather than direct coercion, I see nothing in Libertarian theory that condems such actions, other than the kidnapping.
Are you unable to read? In my evaluation of the thought experiment I explicitly stated that my evaluation of Libertarian theory was potentially incomplete or inaccurate. I have seen precisely one claim of a theoretical refutation, which I refuted. The remainder of the objections merely state that the possibility of economic exploitation magically goes away under Libertarianism. Both the thought experiment and the history of Socialism and the US labor movement from the late 19th centure to present is a strong argument against that facile dismissal.
All well and good, and I’m in agreement. But political theory is about what to do when those freedoms come into conflict. If I perceive that Bill & Ted’s freedom to control the water comes into conflict with my own right to reciprocally set the value of my labor vs. their water, how is this conflict resolved? Under Libertarian theory, Bill & Ted have the power to unilaterally set that value.
Yes. Their parents were making free and rational choices. Without the child’s labor, the family would have starved. By freely agreeing to offer their child’s labor, the parents ensured that child would live. They made the value judgement that labor was superior to death. The chain was in place only to efficiently coerce compliance with that freely made agreement (a permissible use of coercion under Libertarian theory).
My point is that Libertarian theory has nothing to prohibit such blatant exploitation so long as it comes from a differential of economic power and not from overt coercion. Just claiming an arbitrary exception whenever something seemingly permissible offends your sensibilities is not a defense of the theory.
Smartass:
I support my analysis by showing that the structure of Libertarian theory permits economic exploitation, which leads to Plutocracy (rule of the rich). If you want to mindlessly propagandize, take it to the Pit.
Well duh. I don’t object to Libertarianism because it’s not perfect, but because it doesn’t rule out any form of economic exploitation. This is an example of the reverse slippery slope fallacy: If it’s impossible to correct every instance of a perceived wrong then it is irrelevant whether you correct any instance.
Baloney. The instances of blatant economic exploitation from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century (and continuing in some forms even today) handily proves that such exploitation is not only possible but common and pernicious.
I do no such thing. I am rich. Well, I’m not competing with Bill Gates, but I’m a talented professional with a comfortable income. What I rail against is the exploitation of the poor by the rich.
You’re making a distinction without a difference. If someone compels by behavior by threat of a gun or by starvation, I still must submit or die. This is my main objection to Libertarianism. It seems to argue, not against exploitation itself, but only exploitation by certain means.
According to the most strict Libertarian definition of “freedom” this statement is tautological. I’m attempting to show that Libertarian philosophy permits economic exploitation. While each person is still free to starve (the fundamental inalienable freedom under my understanding of Libertarian philosophy), any additional freedom or right can be dictated by those who own the means of survival.
Don’t try to distract this discussion with a straw man. The argument is whether or not Libertarianism permits economic exploitation. We’re not discussing comparisons, we’re discussing a particular feature of Libertarianism.
Debate me or don’t debate me. If you want to call me names, take it to the Pit.
Since I have not proposed a system, this is just a blatant straw man. Defend Libertarian, but don’t try to cloud the issue with a trivial distortion of democracy.
Like your colleague, you seem to fail to understand the nature of a thought experiment.
Damn, I’m getting pissed off. You make claims like this without offering a shred of evidence. More and more you are demonstrating that your comments are propaganda and not debate; your “political” philosophy nothing more than religious dogma.
Let’s examine these statements one by one.
Plutocracy: I provide an elaborate justification of this statement. I may be wrong, but there can be no doubt that I have at least made a prima facia case.
Baldface lie: Calling the restriction of behavior (regardless of how justified) “freedom” is nothing less than a lie. You lie, I call you on it.
Hypocrisy … elite: An error which I admitted and corrected when noted.
Arrant bullshit: Again, The assertion that specialization does not require a group is ludicrous on its face.
Propaganda: Presenting value judgements as fact and making obviously fallacious arguments are inherently propagandistic. I’ve noted repeated instances of these sorts of statements.
Sorry, but if you lie, bullshit, or spout propaganda, I will say so. I will also show reasons why I so identify such statements. So yes, these statements do constitute reasonable argument.
Oy vey. Are you unable to recognize humor? My response to the first objection to the thought experiment covers the other two.
Depends on what you mean by “valid”. The decision to make the hypothesis that Libertarianism will work is certainly valid. But elsewhere you say it does work, which is a classic example of the fallacy of assuming the consequent.
The only “freedom” that Libertarianism explicitly guarantees is the freedom to starve in peace. Everything else must be proven to follow from its explicit premises. And continually, you assert the consequents of the premises of Libertarianism as fact, an obviously fallacious and propagandistic argument.
Yet another assumption of the consequent. Are you getting the point here? You continually assert that Libertarianism has this or that “natural” effect, but you fail to demonstrate the reasoning that leads to these conclusions.
As has been amply demonstrated, economic weapons have sufficient power to tyrranize.
Your psychic powers continue to amaze me.
More propaganda: an ad hominem attack. I’m done with you.
Obviously I’m not going to convince you or waterj2 that your arguments are transparent and propagandistic, any more than I could convince CalifBoomer or Zion that their argument of the truth of their religious principles was self-righteous and beyond the bounds of rational debate.
You have confirmed my suspicious that Libertarianism is a religious postion, and not a rational position. Like any religion, what you believe in the privacy of your own home is none of my business. However your attempts at presenting it as rational debate are as inappropriate and unfounded as any bibilical literalists presentation of divine creation.
It does not suit me to get into shouting arguments with religious zealots. I have made my points. Go play with your fellow believers on a Libertarian board, but don’t intrude your religion in a rational community such as the SDMB. If anyone wishes to offer a rational defense of Libertarianism, I would be happy to debate him. But I won’t engage religious zealots. It’s time-consuming, and without any benefit, and thus irrational.
"Main Entry: fi·nite
Pronunciation: 'fI-“nIt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English finit, from Latin finitus, past participle of finire
Date: 15th century
1 a : having definite or definable limits <finite number of possibilities> b : having a limited nature or existence <finite beings>
2 : completely determinable in theory or in fact by counting, measurement, or thought <the finite velocity of light>
3 a : less than an arbitrary positive integer and greater than the negative of that integer b : having a finite number of elements <a finite set>
4 : of, relating to, or being a verb or verb form that can function as a predicate or as the initial element of one and that is limited (as in tense, person, and number)
- finite noun
- fi·nite·ly adverb
- fi·nite·ness noun”
I would argue that wealth does have definable limits, has a limited existence, and has a finite number of elements. It might be completely determinable in theory by counting and measurement, but I’m not sure about that one.
Perhaps what you meant was that the aquisition of wealth is not a zero-sum game, which I would completely agree with.
I am quite offended at your last post. If you think smartass’ ad hominem attacks poison the well of rational debate, how can you justify yours? Just because you have sufficiently convinced yourself that your position is unassailable doesn’t make it so.
I doubt we’ll ever agree on this matter. There seem to be two points on which our premises in this argument are at odds. The first one is on the matter of rights. You consider exploitation by means of economic disparity to be comparable to force in terms of the degree to which it is morally wrong. I don’t.
The second point we might have more luck with. This is on the matter of economic theory. You believe that in a libertarian society the rich would exploit the poor. Since none of the libertarians here can explain the exact workings of the “invisible hand” the Adam Smith wrote about, you ascribe it to magic. Yeah, I have a tendency to discuss it as if it is a readily apparent point. But my mistake in assuming you have the same economic beliefs as I do does not excuse your claim that this makes it wrong.
Now I do not have a thorough enough understanding of the economics involved to explain it adequately. I’ll try to read through The Wealth of Nations more, but I will not be able to argue this point for a while. In the meantime, you have not shown the converse either. You have made the point that it is likely that the rich would want to oppress the poor. We all accept that. You haven’t shown how they would realistically go about it without resorting to force.
While I understand that the burden of proof falls to me on this matter, I feel you have argued that my lack of bringing it forth makes me wrong, and then called libertarians a bunch of bad names based on it (and as a staunch atheist, I find religious zealot a bad name indeed). I apologize for my inability to argue lucidly on economic theory, but I simply can’t yet. That does not, however, make my beliefs irrational.
If you want to continue this debate civilly, I am more than open to it, and we can resume the point for point style we had going if that’s what you desire. But please leave the sanctimonious comments about my fitness to post to this message board out of it. And if you do know of any libertarian message boards, please let me know where they might be found.
How’s that for irrational religious zealotry? Just a mindless Atlas Shrugged-thumper is all I am.
I can see what you mean about cultural differences. The notion of “forcing” the government to do good and noble things is still shocking to me.
About the Fed, I cannot comprehend that stuff at all, and therefore assume that it is incredibly complex. For all I know, they just have a computer with two buttons, one that says “screw the poor” and another that says “let the rich eat a lower grade of caviar”. I just assume that there’s more to it than that, and that the ultimate goal is more along the lines of a good overall economy than a keep the rich happy economy.
As evidence, I look around my middle-class neighborhood here and we all seem to be gaining disposable income. And from what I’ve heard the economy is doing pretty well for the middle class. The politicians can’t overly screw the middle class or they will no longer be politicians. That they will live fat and happy lives is dependant on them being in power.
matt_mcl - You know, it had never occurred to me that such stark difference in opinions could be the result of cultural differences rather than ethical ones. That was quite an enlightening a post.
SingleDad - I admit to hastily and grossly misunderstanding your key points. You might have stated that I was misunderstanding you. Obviously, though, rational debate is better served by questioning my ability to read. I now have a clearer idea of your objections to libertarianism, both from your last post, and your post in the Marxism thread. I withdraw and apologize for my accusation of intellectual dishonesty, if in fact you “know no such thing” of libertarian condemnation of slavery. I misunderstood your point; you’ve clarified it. Libertarians will go on condemning slavery regardless of your knowledge of how they are able to do so. My level of education on the subject matter is insufficient for me to adequately rebut your claims. If because of this you wish to declare that you’ve “won” the debate, you are welcome to the “victory.” (Obviously, I am speaking only for myself in this, not for Smartass, waterj2, or pld.) The rest of us, though, will probably continue to post on the subject, in this and other threads, in an effort to understand each others’ points of views, as well as clarify our own positions. I think it’s more important that we are learning things from each other, rather than that one side or the other is winning. Fortunately the board rules permit us to do this without first submitting our posts to your specific criteria for rational debate.
wevets - Not claiming to speak for pld, but I think if instead of “wealth is not finite”, he had said “wealth is not fixed”, the meaning would be clearer. That was my understanding of the statement.
waterj2 - You often express things I agree with much better than I can, (and beat me to it, to boot.) There is an active libertarian message board at www.free-market.net/forums/. I don’t participate there due to lack of time, but I do read it occasionally. I think you would enjoy it.
You’ve remind me of the scene from The Matrix, where Keanu is fighting the Agent with one hand. You are inspirational. Thank you.
Single Dad
You’ve posted so much crock that I don’t have near the time to deal with all of it. I have to work, for one thing. But one particular boner screams for attention:
We’ll ignore the logic errors, like the tautology that “free means free”, and deal directly with the mean-spirited and arrogant notions that underlie your, er, um, point.
Unless you are a pure Sanguine or Choleric, you ought to be aware that there are other people out there besides you. Freedom, as libertarianism defines it (and yes, philosophies do define their terms — often differently from one another) is merely the absence of coercion. That is, meaningful freedom is a particular context, that of peace and honesty.
If you are “free” to coerce, then that means that some other man is not free; i.e., he is a slave to your whims.
You are confusing freedom with license, and because you have taken upon yourself the role of logic cop, you need to arrest yourself.
Gilligan and WaterJ: thanks for your comments. The interesting thing about common sense is that while it helps us separate the standard from the absurd, we have to realize that it’s culturally based. History is a good way to look at the roots of our common sense and see why we feel particular ways about things.
My fave philosopher, John Ralston Saul, suggests the existence of (a for-the-sake-of-argument list of) six mental faculties: natural reason, common sense, ethics, intuition, creativity, and memory. Each of them has to be balanced by all the others, otherwise one or another of them ends up as a dictatorship.
You’re reading more into my statement than is there. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try; I’m saying that government should not be the tool we use for that trying.
It is a rare period of history when someone isn’t trying to control someone else. I don’t know that anyone has said that libertarianism can prevent tyranny. It can’t. Neither can any other system I know of. Only people can prevent tyranny. By protecting rights, libertarianism gives people the most tools for protecting themselves from tyranny.
In other words, yes, economic weapons can indeed be effective. However, the combination of economic weapons and physical force is far worse.
How do you keep one from oppressing the others? SingleDad:
Obviously, we are in disagreement about what it is that we are trying to debate. I don’t know that anyone has said that libertarianism is the world’s perfect system or that under it, nothing can ever go wrong. If you think that we are trying to prove that, it’s no wonder you think we are failing miserably.
Speaking for myself, I am only trying to establish that libertarianism is preferable to any system that men have come up with to date. Since you entered the debate in support of social democracy, I have been arguing as if that is the system that you propose to be better than libertarianism.
I am still prepared to continue arguing that libertarianism is the best system, so far; I wouldn’t know how to begin arguing that it is perfect. If you have come up with a system that is better, I am all ears. If there is some other system you want to hold up to ours (other than social democracy), you should point it out.
I am still not sure what you hoped to accomplish with your thought experiment. If all you wanted to prove was that economic oppression is possible, it was pointless. If enough people want to oppress others, there does not exist a system that can stop them, except by having the system oppress everyone. However, if your goal was to show that this oppression was likely, or easy to achieve by a small number of people, you have failed. We have shown that, given the situation you created, Bill and Ted cannot realistically be expected to be able to oppress the community. Does this prove that economic oppression cannot happen? No. Does it prove, as you seem to think, that it will happen–or is even likely? No. The experiment simply does not work.
The key advantage that libertarianism has over every other system I know of is not that it utterly eliminates oppression. It is that it makes oppression more difficult. Every other system puts coercive (read: physical) force in the hands of some number of people to use as they please. Libertarianism eliminates this.
Libertarianism also recognizes a simple fact that you, apparently, prefer to ignore: In any system, it is up to the people to ensure that they are not oppressed. It is up to the people to ensure that resources are used efficiently. It is up to the people to ensure that their overall society is accomplishing the goals that they want to see achieved. Libertarianism does nothing to guarantee that people achieve their goals: It only ensures that they cannot be forcibly thwarted from achieving them. It is this that leads you to accuse us of claiming magic causes things to happen. This is not true. We expect things to happen because we expect people to want them to happen. Given that our system is designed to allow people to pursue their goals, we are confident that those goals that are most desirable to the largest number will be achieved. This is not magic. Also, if the people suddenly decide that their goals have changed, then society will change to match their new goals. This happens quickly because they don’t have to battle the government to do it. Once again, this is not magic.
In other words, your concerns about libertarianism’s response to economic exploitation are, from our standpoint, misguided. In libertarianism, the government is not expected to solve problems–the people are. This is also true in a democratic system, the main difference being that in the latter system people expect to use the government as their tool for problem solving. Under Libertarianism, the people use whatever tools are available to them, and they generally tend to be better tools than centralized government.
Let me put it another way: Let’s say that oppression begins to happen in a democratic system. How does the system correct it? It doesn’t. It waits for the people to act–by voting that something be done. Now let’s say that oppression begins to happen in a libertarian system. How does the system correct it? It doesn’t. It waits for the people to act–the advantage is that it doesn’t require them all to agree and ensures that they will not be thwarted in their actions by use of physical force.
You claim that, in the thought experiment, libertarianism fails because the government does not act “on its own” to solve a problem that develops. We claim that libertarianism does not fail, because the people are not prevented from taking actions to solve the problem. In our refutation of your thesis, we pointed out some of the options that were available to the people that could be exercised to solve the problem.
Your position is that since government did not act to solve the problem, then the system failed. Our position is that since the government could not be used to prevent people from solving the problem, the system succeeded.
Now, if you want to propose a governmental system that is better than ours, I will be happy to compose a thought experiment to show where it fails.
Only if the people do. On the other hand, it prevents all exploitation based on use of physical force. Once again, can you name a system that is better? That is more effective at preventing exploitation and oppression?
I think that’s far enough for now, in terms of theory. We can go further, based on your response, if there is one.
Now, I cannot sign off without pointing out the hypocritical nature of your behavior. You have used deliberately inflammatory remarks, and an overall condescending tone, in every one of your posts in this thread. And yet, when we respond in kind, you tout it as an example of our failure at “reasoned debate”. Last time I checked, reasoned debate required adherence to the tenets of reason from both sides. To expect it from us and not from yourself is the essence of “unreasonable”.
So, how about this? I have made a point in this post of not responding in kind to your deliberate baiting of me. If you will respond in kind, then we will indeed have a reasoned debate, and will probably all be enriched by it. But remember, libertarians believe in the rights of individuals to defend themselves from the unfairness of others. If you post half-assed refutations, sprinkled with snide remarks, I will respond in kind. waterj2:
As a fellow member of “the faith”, I couldn’t help but notice you failed to attend last week’s “Market-Worship Revival”, which is considered a holy day of obligation. I hope you realize that, before you can participate in any further market transactions, you will have to go to recession. Gilligan:
Methinks you concede to easily. Libertarian:
It’s about time you showed up. I was beginning to think you might have applied for a name change.
Like I said: by keeping them in balance, using them constantly, and not deifying any particular one of them.
In my conciliatory post above, I showed that we have to use our memory to keep our common sense from overwhelming us.
For another example, The Enlightenment destroyed a dictatorship of ethics (the Church) and of memory (the royal successions of Europe) using reason and common sense.
However, Saul argues in Voltaire’s Bastards that the Enlightenment left our present societies in a dictatorship of reason: an amoral, meaningless tyranny of structure. He gives profound arguments for mustering our ethics, common sense, creativity, memory, and intuition to bring reason back in balance.
At any rate, we probably shouldn’t talk more about the dictatorship of reason and faculties in balance in this thread, it being completely beyond the scope of the present discussion.
I am starting late and struggling to catch up. I haven’t kept up after my flippant post. I have started reading the 2nd page and I expect to be caught up tomorrow. A couple things right now:
DISCLAIMER: I claim no responsability for the hypothetical government which bears my name.
waterj2:
I believe I might have to disagree with you here.
You are talking about the property rights of the rich, correct?
As in, the poor have no right to my money?
BTW- I was right. I can’t resist opening Sun Tzu’s masterpiece. I’ve already read a good deal of the intro, and at this rate I will have finished my “vacation book” before I even see the beach.
Thanks again.
Smartass, all I’m conceding is a lack of sufficient education in economic and political theory to make the points that you and waterj2 are making. (I was a music major, of all things.) I came to libertarianism from an ethical direction, rather than a political one, and extremely recently as well. Also, I generally prefer the types of threads in which people post their various points of view on a subject. This thread seemed to start out that way, but eventually became another “I’m right” “No, I’m right” confrontation. I become frustrated when this happens to threads because they stop being places to learn.
On a humorous note, I think there may be a strategic advantage for us to consider our philosophy a religion, as it’s been called. I note that the Amish are granted exemption from participating in the Social Security system because it violates their religious beliefs. Maybe we could get the same exemption. We could all get t-shirts, keychains, and bracelets printed with our slogan WWMD.
I suggest a libertarian approach: Let that faculty which is most affected lead in each situation. Thus, when discussing the origin of the universe, reason should predominate; when someone leaves their car unlocked, ethics should predominate; etc. What do you think? 2sense:
Sorry about that 2sense government thing. I was just so pleased with it, and it seemed to fit, I hated to have it go to waste. Don’t mean for you to have to wear it around like a scarlet letter. Gilligan:
I understand, and agree with, your frustration. I make no claim to economic expertise either. For me, it is largely about fairness. I think, however, as a participant, you can keep your portion of the debate in those areas that you feel most qualified to discuss. Since you actually arrived at libertarianism by way of ethics, I think you and matt_mcl could have a fascinating discussion.
As for the religion idea, I think it sounds pretty good. As long as I still get to sleep in on Sundays.
I’d visit more often, but I have to work. Besides, you’re doing a fine job overall. Perhaps some of the socialists here wouldn’t mind giving me their money so I could visit more frequently.
Gilligan
I, like you, came into libertarianism from ethics, rather than from politics. In my libertarian infancy, whenever I became confused, I simply closed my eyes and recalled the ethic. ‘Yes’, I would remember, ‘all people are entitled by God or nature (whichever they believe gave them life — our original property) to be free from the coercion and fraud of others, even if that means using defensive or retaliatory force, or hiring someone else to use those forces for you’.
Simply deal with the Giant Squid scenarios honestly. Yes, if a really mean man owned all the water on earth, the rest of us might be in a pickle. But since we’re just supposing, I’ll say the man is really nice. Okay?
Also, always remember that libertarianism is not a system, but rather a context, namely, a context of peace and honesty. It is not a matter that the “libertarian system” (sic) is better than some other system. There is no libertarian system.
Remember, libertarianism will allow the socialists to collectivise voluntarily, if they wish, and enjoy a veritable orgy of mutual pillage.