medicineman
New Member
Is there a conection between libertarians and greed?
"How many Libertarians does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "None. The free market will take care of it."
"Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do." - Bertrand Russell
"There isn't much point arguing about the word "libertarian." It would make about as much sense to argue with an unreconstructed Stalinist about the word "democracy" -- recall that they called what they'd constructed "peoples' democracies." The weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called "libertarian" here happens to amount to advocacy of perhaps the worst kind of imaginable tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. If they want to call that "libertarian," fine; after all, Stalin called his system "democratic." But why bother arguing about it?" - Noam Chomsky Warning: touchy libertarians with no sense of humour will almost certainly be offended.
What is libertarianism?
If you ask ten libertarians to define libertarianism, you'll get twenty answers. This obviously makes providing a useful working definition here tricky, but I'll try; for a fuller list of typically libertarian values, with much provocative criticism, see Why is libertarianism wrong? by Paul Treanor, or esr's typically well-written libertarian FAQ.
Libertarianism is, or purports to be, effectively a strange blend of a left-wing emphasis on personal liberty and a right-wing emphasis on economic (in practice, corporate) liberty - thus the two-dimensional diagram which makes up the biased and deeply flawed Nolan test, aka "the world's smallest political quiz". (Personally, I prefer the political compass; it's a lot larger and has no inbuilt agenda.) It favours small government (none at all in the case of its anarcho-capitalist subsect), strong or sovereign property rights, unregulated free markets, a strong emphasis on individualism, and a complete disdain for collectivist actions which benefit society as a whole. In other words, it's the kind of political philosophy you'd expect from a spoilt child and a ruthless businessman bent on profit above everything else.
Some pieces of libertarianism are appealing on their own, although such pieces are also found in other philosophies, and others are mostly harmless in isolation. The combination of them all, however, is heavily flawed and deeply suspect, which - in a twist worth of 1984 - predicts exactly the opposite of what it superficially promises. Here are some reasons why.
The political perpetual-motion machine
Libertarians sometimes talk about breaking up concentrations of power. In practice, what they mean is breaking up the power of government, presumably with the intention of leaving behind small concentrations of power which cancel each other out. This is the political equivalent of a perpetual-motion machine, with no state of lowest potential energy; of course, it won't last, and the resulting power vacuum will sooner or later be filled, as any student of history will tell you. The result will be the replacement of a government which (however imperfectly) represents the people by, effectively, a mafia responsible to itself only. Libertarians might find this desireable, but I don't.
Republicans who want to smoke pot
Of the two types of liberty - personal and corporate - which libertarians claim to support, it is corporate liberty which is more important to most libertarians. This is plain from the contempt with which they regard liberals, the main political grouping which supports personal liberty - a contempt often indistinguishable from the hate-filled rantings of the likes of Ann Coulter. It also follows logically from the fact that, whenever personal and corporate liberty are in conflict, corporate liberty will always supersede personal liberty - for the simple reason that, in the absence of government, corporations have more power than individuals. In this context, libertarianism is essentially an extreme form of free-market capitalism which pays lip-service to individual liberty.
On this topic, a correspondent who described himself as "an anarchist (the real kind, not the Murray Rothbard kind)" sent me a link to Archimedes by Mark Twain, which (he says) was "written during that Libertarian Golden (more correctly, Gilded) Age, post-Civil War robber baron-era America" and "pretty aptly describes, in my opinion, what the world would be like under their property despotism".
Unrestricted force
The "Zero-Aggression Principle", one of the foundations of libertarianism, forbids the use of force or fraud except in response to a use of force or fraud. Significantly, this fine-sounding principle fails to actually define either "force" or "fraud", nor does it give any indication about how much of either is permissible in response. In a civilised society, these would be laid down in law and enforced by government; in a libertarian one, however, the details would be left to specific circumstances - opening the way for psychotic individuals, or ruthless corporations, to use unlimited force on anyone they don't like under the slightest pretext. Libertarians might point to private law courts, but these are merely guarantors of justice for only those who can afford it.
Another example of the woolly libertarian concept of "force" is the common assertion that government taxes are the "theft" of "your money" acquired by force. By the same argument, so is any action taken by the utility company against non-payment of your bill. Do libertarians want to have services without paying for them, or just those provided by government? Then there's the matter of protecting oneself. Libertarians favour the use of private protection forces instead of government-provided police; what this would lead to in practice is corporate thugs responsible only to their employers, with a corresponding lack of protection for those unable to afford it. By the libertarian conceptions of "force" and "defence", you are perfectly able to shoot someone who accidentally trespasses on your property, bury the body - or hang it prominenly from the nearest tree - and refuse access to anyone who wishes to investigate the trespasser's disappearance.
"How many Libertarians does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "None. The free market will take care of it."
"Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do." - Bertrand Russell
"There isn't much point arguing about the word "libertarian." It would make about as much sense to argue with an unreconstructed Stalinist about the word "democracy" -- recall that they called what they'd constructed "peoples' democracies." The weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called "libertarian" here happens to amount to advocacy of perhaps the worst kind of imaginable tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. If they want to call that "libertarian," fine; after all, Stalin called his system "democratic." But why bother arguing about it?" - Noam Chomsky Warning: touchy libertarians with no sense of humour will almost certainly be offended.
What is libertarianism?
If you ask ten libertarians to define libertarianism, you'll get twenty answers. This obviously makes providing a useful working definition here tricky, but I'll try; for a fuller list of typically libertarian values, with much provocative criticism, see Why is libertarianism wrong? by Paul Treanor, or esr's typically well-written libertarian FAQ.
Libertarianism is, or purports to be, effectively a strange blend of a left-wing emphasis on personal liberty and a right-wing emphasis on economic (in practice, corporate) liberty - thus the two-dimensional diagram which makes up the biased and deeply flawed Nolan test, aka "the world's smallest political quiz". (Personally, I prefer the political compass; it's a lot larger and has no inbuilt agenda.) It favours small government (none at all in the case of its anarcho-capitalist subsect), strong or sovereign property rights, unregulated free markets, a strong emphasis on individualism, and a complete disdain for collectivist actions which benefit society as a whole. In other words, it's the kind of political philosophy you'd expect from a spoilt child and a ruthless businessman bent on profit above everything else.
Some pieces of libertarianism are appealing on their own, although such pieces are also found in other philosophies, and others are mostly harmless in isolation. The combination of them all, however, is heavily flawed and deeply suspect, which - in a twist worth of 1984 - predicts exactly the opposite of what it superficially promises. Here are some reasons why.
The political perpetual-motion machine
Libertarians sometimes talk about breaking up concentrations of power. In practice, what they mean is breaking up the power of government, presumably with the intention of leaving behind small concentrations of power which cancel each other out. This is the political equivalent of a perpetual-motion machine, with no state of lowest potential energy; of course, it won't last, and the resulting power vacuum will sooner or later be filled, as any student of history will tell you. The result will be the replacement of a government which (however imperfectly) represents the people by, effectively, a mafia responsible to itself only. Libertarians might find this desireable, but I don't.
Republicans who want to smoke pot
Of the two types of liberty - personal and corporate - which libertarians claim to support, it is corporate liberty which is more important to most libertarians. This is plain from the contempt with which they regard liberals, the main political grouping which supports personal liberty - a contempt often indistinguishable from the hate-filled rantings of the likes of Ann Coulter. It also follows logically from the fact that, whenever personal and corporate liberty are in conflict, corporate liberty will always supersede personal liberty - for the simple reason that, in the absence of government, corporations have more power than individuals. In this context, libertarianism is essentially an extreme form of free-market capitalism which pays lip-service to individual liberty.
On this topic, a correspondent who described himself as "an anarchist (the real kind, not the Murray Rothbard kind)" sent me a link to Archimedes by Mark Twain, which (he says) was "written during that Libertarian Golden (more correctly, Gilded) Age, post-Civil War robber baron-era America" and "pretty aptly describes, in my opinion, what the world would be like under their property despotism".
Unrestricted force
The "Zero-Aggression Principle", one of the foundations of libertarianism, forbids the use of force or fraud except in response to a use of force or fraud. Significantly, this fine-sounding principle fails to actually define either "force" or "fraud", nor does it give any indication about how much of either is permissible in response. In a civilised society, these would be laid down in law and enforced by government; in a libertarian one, however, the details would be left to specific circumstances - opening the way for psychotic individuals, or ruthless corporations, to use unlimited force on anyone they don't like under the slightest pretext. Libertarians might point to private law courts, but these are merely guarantors of justice for only those who can afford it.
Another example of the woolly libertarian concept of "force" is the common assertion that government taxes are the "theft" of "your money" acquired by force. By the same argument, so is any action taken by the utility company against non-payment of your bill. Do libertarians want to have services without paying for them, or just those provided by government? Then there's the matter of protecting oneself. Libertarians favour the use of private protection forces instead of government-provided police; what this would lead to in practice is corporate thugs responsible only to their employers, with a corresponding lack of protection for those unable to afford it. By the libertarian conceptions of "force" and "defence", you are perfectly able to shoot someone who accidentally trespasses on your property, bury the body - or hang it prominenly from the nearest tree - and refuse access to anyone who wishes to investigate the trespasser's disappearance.
