Whew! Thank O-g my trench is the one where people think of things beyond their own noses!
Yes! Thank you! Somalia! That is a perfect example of Libertarianism. If only we here in the ol’ US of A could evolve into such a dreamy existence!
Something to shoot for, anyway.
PS: I thought that whole adding a juvenile signature as text in every post thing was finally shot down by the mods. I see you are still doing it. It certainly is still very annoying, but perhaps I only dreamed that the mods finally cleaned up that shitstorm.
OK. Great, I like real examples. So, assuming the junkyard hasn’t been built, who determines whether the junkyard is going to be harmful for the other residents of the town, and to what extent? You don’t want a department of the environment to be added to the town government, I assume? Let’s suppose some perfectly honest, trustful and reliable corporation (and working for cheaper than a town agency, for some reason) offers its service for this risk assessment. Who pays for it? If the majority of the population, afraid of the risk, is willing to pay, but I’m not, am I allowed to be a parasite and benefit from the risk assessment (the junkyard won’t open if it’s dangerous) without giving a dime?
Assuming now that the junkyard has been built, and that it is noted later that it caused major damages. For instance, many people die from cancer during the next 10-20 years. Damages far exceeding the assets of the junkyard’s owner, so that direct redress is impossible. Are the citizens of the town allowed or not to ban the future building of junkyards within the town limit? What is done, if anything, for the victims? Say, the orphans of the people who died from cancer, who have yet not received any education? (We’re assuming real life, here, so most people are greedy bastards. If we assume otherwise, we might as well try communism, because it will work too).
Wait a minute. I don’t want to pay for old houses, either. I just want to enjoy seeing them. Some old house-lovers will probably buy the houses so that they won’t be destroyed. Now, I’m benefiting from externalities. I’ve a better view, and my property is worth more because of the attractive old houses nearby.
Again : am I allowed to be a parasite, or should I pay for the benefits, which means that in fact I’m forced to pay for something I didn’t want to pay for?
If in both previous examples (the junkyard and the old houses) I’m allowed to be a parasite, are you satisfied with the net result : the more cautious (junkyard) and the more insightful (who notice that preserving old houses would be a net benefit) are footing the bill while the more irresponsible, blind and greedy (me, for instance) benefit from it as free riders?
Oh! You’re not allowed in the first example to cheat and state that the potential builder of the site should pay for the risk assessment for two reasons :
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This example allows for a single person or entity to be picked as being solely responsible for it, but in other situations it wouldn’t be obvious, so you wouldn’t be addressing the general problem of negative externalities
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We would run into new problems. We don’t know whether or not there’s actually a risk. If the junkyard owner thinks there isn’t any, but part of the town’s citizen think there might be one, how could he be forced, in your libertarian system, to pay for something he doesn’t want to pay for, barring for instance a court decision that would itself have to rely on an assessment of risk? And you’re going to have a hell of a costly judiciary system if any single citizen can demand such a court decision and risk assessment for whatever random reason crosses his mind (far more costly than an actual public environment agency).
I suspect that if you lived 120 years ago, your attitude would be very different. I must have missed in my history classes the fight of the true believers in total free enterprise against child labor and unsafe workplaces. IIRC, the fighters for that were considered socialists or worse, and sometimes were. I believe the philosophy of the free enterprise party was that it was immoral to take away the rights of parents to force their children into work, and that anyone objecting to working in lofts with blocked exits could just find other jobs.
Man was born into pure libertarianism - back when life was nasty brutish and short. Each and every law you hate so much came as a result of the abuses you seem to think are impossible or beneficial.
Just thought that you could argue again about an hypothetical contract between the town residents. Just in case, I remind that of course, I can’t be forced to enter into such a contract if I don’t care about junkyards and old houses.
Plus, these idealist collective “contracts” remind me so much of the argumentation used by leftists anarchists (anarcho-syndicalists, collectivist anarchists, as they are apparently called in English) that it’s funny to see them mentioned here.
Libertarianism has been called “the anarchy of the Right”.
I appreciate the assurance. It’s comforting.
I wasn’t talking about changing laws, I was reacting to your claim of repealing laws (and perhaps more specifically, slimming down the the Federal Register) and thereby minimizing the scope of government.
Doesn’t sound like anyone you voted for did that.
i’m amazed by the hard line stance many of you are taking. for someone to claim libertarianism, you’re openly antagonizing them, taking libertarianism to the extreme and demanding rationalization for slavery, toll roads, and leaving grandmothers to burn.
can the anti-libertarians out there argue without going to extremes with the government making current decisions based on libertarian tendencies such as being more fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Lessen bailouts, equalize balance of trade, cut back on taxing/spending, end the futile war on drugs, nix the speed limit, etc?
not all libertarians are library-hating, money grubbing, quasi anarchists. i appreciate libraries, public education, and municipal parks. i don’t enjoy watching the US spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined. i don’t like watching Capital Hill subsidize Motown auto workers. i don’t like farm subsidies, and i don’t like paying social security. Imagine the poster child of the free market - having social security. Even China doesn’t have social security.
Anyway, i hope there can be some sort of give and take, or even some honest debating rather than pigheadedness and making accusations to me wanting to roast my grandmother alive.
Please point out exactly where I’ve written about abuses being impossible or beneficial. As a matter of fact, I’ve said the opposite: abuses are possible everywhere and no ideology is immune from criticism. I think you’re replying to the wrong person.
In any case, I guess the particular economics “-ism” you favor does not have abuse? Can you tell me what it is? (I also asked Der Trihs this but he/she ignored the question.)
Well said. I would have hoped for that, too. But it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, does it?
It’s curious thing. And an interesting psychological phenomenon that I haven’t been able to figure out.
At it’s root it seems that people place more faith in a government bureaucrat, whom they’ve never met, and over whom they have no control, to make decisions for them about their own lives. Instead of keeping that right for themselves.
Why is that? I don’t get it. Maybe it stems from some fundamental human insecurity. The whole trading freedom for liberty thing. I don’t know.
I do not wish to speak for everyone else here but quite often that government bureaucrat is more qualified than me to make a decision.
But maybe you are not talking about something requiring specialist knowledge so perhaps you could give me an example?
I have very little faith in government. But I have still less in business. Governments can easily be changed and removed. Businesses not so much. What you’re seeing is, I think, the following (disclaimer; I am a left anarchist who sees my ideal as currently unfeasible).
Government can help protect us from predation and help to redress a huge imbalance of power that is a fundament of right-libertarian thought. It’s nonsense to suggest that you can bargain on equal terms with your employer. The power imbalance is too big. And if you decide to form a union to address this imbalance what is to prevent your employer from not merely firing you but ensuring you end up on an employment blacklist? In your right-lib world absolutely nothing.
Nor is there anything to protect the equal rights of any minority to access anything. Jim Crow might be barred from a return to official law but could well make a return in practice. There is no safeguard in a right-lib society to stop that.
I will add that I am somewhat fascinated by right-lib thought. It is so close and yet so far from my own.
Then you are free to employ them on your behalf.
Contact them every morning, if you wish, to get their advice. Pay them a fee. Subscribe to their services. Give them a call on the blower and see what they have to say about things.
It is your choice to do exactly what they tell you to do, if you so desire. Follow their prescriptions to the letter, if that’s what you want.
But I may not want to. I don’t want the FDA telling me what drugs are ‘safe’ and ‘not safe’ for example. I prefer to make that choice on my own.
Is that so hard to understand? Why is this such a difficult concept to grasp?
You have every power to stop being a customer of a business if you so desire. That resides entirely within your hands. Stop buying their phones. Stop buying their brand of car. Don’t go to eat there any more. Flick off the channel.
You have absolutely no choice if the government says you must do something, and you disagree.
You have it backwards. The free market gives you control over your choices. The government gives you none.
How do you ‘vote’ to pick a different insurance regulator in your state, when the current one prevents you from buying high-deductible, low-premium catastrophic insurance?
How do you ‘vote’ to get rid of the ATF, which is completely redundant with other federal enforcement agencies and accomplishes nothing?
How do you ‘vote’ to get rid of protective trade barriers on imported sugar, which drive up the price of countless manufactured foods in this country?
You can’t.
This simple statement reveals so much about government’s insidious influence on our lives.
Have we become too brainwashed/ignorant/insulated to see that governments are predators themselves? Unlike businesses, their “predatory” practices are disguised. They are cloaked so well that the masses actually beg for govt action instead of rejecting it.
Who’s the predator of your savings account’s buying power when they inflate the money supply behind your back? Government is the predator. Even the “evil” businesses are the victims of this govt theft. (Remember, the citizens do not get to vote on inflationary actions — even in a democracy.)
Who’s the predator of your child’s mind during formative school years? Fed state governments dictate dumbed-down curriculums that subjugate children into obedient workers and mindless consumers.
Who’s the predator of your human body when you are conscripted to fight and die in a war? It’s certainly not General Electric or Microsoft that drafted all those young men to sacrifice their lives.
If the gov’t can convince 300 million citizens to reflexively chant “government can protect us from predators!”, it would be a crowning achievement in social engineering. At that point, those citizens deserve everything they get (and the politicians deserve the spoils of victory.)
It would be nice if we could pay some attention to the actual question posed at the very start of this thread. Instead, its the usual discussion about libertarian philosophy and how it could save the world if we only gave it complete and unfettered opportunity to do so.
Could we look at the nuts and bolts practical element here for a bit if anyone cares? The fact is that is you are going to build a movement that goes beyond the fringe, you need certain social skills to build a party, an organization, a structure than can gain the reins of government and then put into place their program. That is what you need to go beyond the fringe - at least in the USA.
There is absolutely nothing in the libertarian make-up which indicates they have the foggiest inkling of how to do that. Their own political party does not even garner one-half of one percent of the presidential vote every four years. They have no known spokesperson, no identifiable platform or issue which resonates with the American people, and no track record of any kind to show they can govern and achieve anything.
Lets forget about the usual philosophy for a few moments and look at the practical realities which doom the libertarians to the margins of the political system.
In fact, the very concept of organizing and acting as a group is antithetical to the set of attitudes that underlie the ideology. Even if society was interested, the “Libertarians” are doomed to remain on the fringe of politics and of society itself because of who they are.
One might even suggest that that very alienation from society is what makes an adherent interested in it in the first place - it’s no doubt very attractive to think of oneself as a superhero, and all the other laughing people in school as parasites.
I don’t see much debate on this aspect. Both sides already seem to agree (more or less) that liberterian thinking doesn’t have much chance asserting itself through the established political system.
I threw out another possibility besides political party mechanisms to expand beyond the fringe: If/when the government’s finances collapse, that’s when people might look at the philosophy (or adopt it unwittingly for survival). At that point of society’s pain, they can’t just turn to government assistance – because the government has no money! It would take a generation or 2 before citizens would trust a new government economic policy.
That’s a fair point.
The existing organization of the Libertarian party, and the lack of any recognizable name leading it, will doom it to the margins. And the Libs did stupid things for many years, like insisting on being on the ballot in all 50 states, which drained resources and diffused focus, rather than get traction by winning a Congressional seat here or there, or a governorship.
I actually don’t care if Democrats or Republicans call themselves the same name, but start adopting Libertarian principles. That’s the main thing. They can call themselves the Marilyn Manson party for all I care.
The last election was the most depressing in a good long while. One candidate put the V-8 Hemi in 5th gear, floored the accelerator, and drove headlong towards the cliff of increased government involvement as fast as he possibly could. The other made some small government noises once in a while, but was wildly incoherent and unstable when it counted the most, and left most small-government types totally confused as to where he stood on the major issues.
But decisions float by every day that are excellent litmus tests for whether the needle is moving in the right direction or not. Bailouts. Card check for unions. Increased regulation on health care. Trade protection. Judges given the right to alter contracts. Ethanol subsidies. A still (!) unclear outcome on whether Fannie and Freddie will continue to exist.
Whether you want to vote for a party with the stamp of ‘Libertarian’ on it, or not, where you stand on the issues above says a lot.