Short Simple Dismissal of Libertarianism

You may enjoy some of these contradictions from the blog "Unlearning Economics":

Voluntary cooperation is justified and produces superior outcomes, except when people join unions.

Rational self interest is to be celebrated and encouraged, but should be ridiculed in the case of envy.

Excessive wages are bad and cause unemployment, but CEO pay is always justified.

Top-down planning is bad, but we should never question the actions of corporations.

Capitalism is stable. But when the government doesn’t intervene we can blame them for the Great Depression (and also the Great Recession).

Nudging people is wrong, but we shouldn’t regulate advertising and packaging. (OK, this one is probably based on the fact that most haven’t read or don’t understand Nudge).

Investors need to be confident about the future. No, we shouldn’t shore up their confidence by injecting money into the economy! What on earth…

And of course, the classic: government shouldn’t interfere in people’s lives, except when it’s telling them exactly how to behave.


Links to the Free Market Double Standards series of posts (containing lots of links to interesting papers and articles):
http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/free-market-double-standards/
http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/more-free-market-double-standards/
http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/yet-more-free-market-double-standards/
http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/free-market-double-standards-4-0/

 

I don't see how preferring exchange via voluntary market transactions is selfish, whereas asking for more $$ transfer at the end of a gun barrel is not.

Personally I define selfish as wanting to get or take something from someone that isn't mine or that I didn't earn.

 

This seems mostly focused on economic libertarianism. While I agree that economic libertarianism is somewhat unrealistic, they make plenty of sense socially and in foreign policy.

Economically, you can assume that a lot of the most powerful actors are rational, but that means they will do whatever possible to consolidate power.

It's why I subscribe mostly to libertarian socialism -- the Chomsky version of libertarianism.

 

Here's another one. Libertarians are oblivious to and deny racial reality. They believe all cultures and religions should merge and coexist within the same confines. But otherwise good post.

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Do you agree that race, culture and religion should merge?

 

I wasn't aware of that particular axiom. I don't actually know any libertarians that subscribe to that idea.

I will say that, over time, races, cultures, and religions do merge and evolve.

I don't think that's a matter of choice so much as it is just the way things happen.

My race is combination of European heritages. My culture is a combination of Western influences. Although I don't have a religion, I was raised in an environment with multiple Protestant influences.

So, suggesting that races, cultures, and religions should merge seems a bit redundant. America is probably the best example of cultural and racial merging.

 

but even supposed anarcho capitalists like Milton Friedman supported social safety nets in the form of a basic income guarantee, regardless of whether you were employed or not (which contradicts 10 out of the 14 statements alone)

the OP is more so a statement against Objectivism

 

Isn't the statist mindset just hilarious?

Even though hundreds of millions of Americans interact with one another in a voluntary fashion, on a daily basis, somehow the basic principal of libertarianism is far fetched. I guess you have to take their bully like mentality into account.

 

This is pretty much the opposite of what libertarians believe.

Libertarians believe the principle of non-coercion and of course, that's an ideal scenario. It means if you want to keep what you have, it's OK, if you want to give everything to the charity, it's OK as well.

Can you say the same thing about liberalism?

That's and ideal scenario used to simplify the construction of mathematical analytical models. As for reality, we have tons of ppl like you reminding libertarians that what's true in theory may not be true at all, in reality...

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Murry Rothbard is an anarcho capitalist. Milton Friedman is anything but. He has his fair share of fear and loathing from the libertarian crowd.

 

Who will protect you when you get ripped off during these "voluntary market transactions"?

How will you help those in your community who are unable to use "voluntary market transactions"?

 

ROTFL!

That must be why they believe in the landowner's right to effectively enslave others and starve them to death if they feel like it.

Voluntary and non coercive my a$$.

 

Name one prominent libertarian figure who believe so. Do you liberals just love to forge something out of the thin air?

To be fair, some do argue that minors do not have rights because they "belong" to their parents.

 

Wow, did trying to make sense ever dawn on that brainwashed statist brain of yours? Don't answer, the picture is clear.

If you believe in voluntary association, where the (*)(*)(*)(*) does slavery fit in the picture?

Jesus, you just can't make this (*)(*)(*)(*) up.

 

Wow, did trying to make sense ever dawn on that brainwashed statist brain of yours? Don't answer, the picture is clear.

If you believe in voluntary association, where the (*)(*)(*)(*) does slavery fit in the picture?

Jesus, you just can't make this (*)(*)(*)(*) up.

 

Simple. They believe in strong landowner rights and at the same time oppose all kinds of government intervention which saves people from effective enslavement therefrom.

 

Who are "they"? Can you not read? I said name one prominent libertarian figure.

 

Oh, great, vapid and moronic personal insults. Okay, I'll happily oblige:

Statist? What a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing bombastic delusional and brainwashed parasite apologist. Turn your brain on for a minute, please.

Read my signature? Well, you see, Thomas Paine is on my side, the land value tax and liberty advocate side. You on the other hand are an apologist for state granted privilege and parasitic mooching. (BTW, I also want to completely get rid of the income tax, sales tax, food stamps, welfare, minimum wage laws, etc. once the land problem is dealt with. They would be superfluous then anyways without so much parasitism in the economy.)

Here, this is your precious history of landowning absent necessary government intervention to save people from effective enslavement:

"During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal army. When the war broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had not been back to my old Kentucky home for years until a short time ago, when I was met by one of my father's old negroes, who said to me: "Mas George, you say you sot us free; but 'fore God, I'm wus off than when I belonged to your father." The planters, on the other hand, are contented with the change. They say: "How foolish it was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than when we owned the slaves." How do they get it cheaper? Why, in the shape of rents they take more of the labor of the negro than they could under slavery, for then they were compelled to return him sufficient food, clothing and medical attendance to keep him well, and were compelled by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, to keep him when he could no longer work. Now their interest and responsibility cease when they have got all the work out of him they can." - George M. Jackson, Reprinted in Social Problems, 1883

Read up on 'law of rent'. It explains how once all the good land becomes private property and the margin of production dwindles to almost nothing, effective enslavement to landowners is what follows.

That is the parasitic history of landowning, my friend, and your delusional nonsense of feudal/royal libertarianism being society of voluntary association is thus nothing but delusional nonsense.

 

First question, once more, no anarchists in these parts, you seem to make that mistake lots here unless I have you confused with another poster. Libertarians aren't anarchists, and most of them agree with reasonable regulations and limited government of enumerated powers. You mentioned Locke earlier, the map of legitimate government function is right there and includes judicial functions . Do you realize that about 40,000 new laws are passed in this country every year?

Second question, when they live in my community with me, come to me and ask for help, I will do my best to help them. It worked this way just fine in this country for many years. With reasonable taxation, I could do much more for others... whom I know. Most libertarians would espouse "charity begins at home" as opposed to "render unto caesar."

 

Raw forest land is about $2k an acre near me without the best water and road frontage. Better land goes for $5-10k. Premium land is market dependent. You can buy land for much less in the less populated areas and states. Lots of owners are desperate to sell land actually in a poor real estate market and may even self-finance for you. Even in a bad economy, buying land. a house, etc. is within the reach of almost anyone in this country. I fail to see your point on this supposed parasitism and enslavement. Do you live in Ireland 200 years ago? or the United States?

 

Lol! Awesome. So then rights are all subject to human interpretation, correct? You're not actually entitled to anything at all (not even the right to life) and you really only have the right to whatever someone with more power than you chooses to grant you. So then what's all this nonsense about "equal rights" that the left wing always whines about? If you have no natural rights, then whatever rights the government chooses to grant you at any point in time should be sufficient by default. And your only argument against the status quo is a pitiful and selfish cry of, "But I want moooooooooaaaaar!!!!!!"

Libertarian (and conservative) economic arguments are based on the same Darwinian survival of the fittest principle that liberals demand that we learn about in science class. Why is it that you people insist that evolution is irrefutably true but then get offended and try to stop it when you see it in action? You people are extremely self-contradictory.

Uh, libertarians prefer the system of "you earn it, you keep it" over the emotional mob mentality of "we want it, we take it."

Once again, you are angry at science. Not at libertarians. You are essentially faulting them for something that you insist the human race does naturally. Stop contradicting yourselves and you will suffer a lot less.

This might be the most backwards thing I've ever read. Libertarians are the most hands-off people in society other than pure anarchists. In fact, if you want to fault them for something, a more accurate complaint would be that they are too live-and-let-live. Conversely, liberalism operates from a pathological position of "we know what's best for you / do what we say."

This is why I say that leftism is a philosophy of projection. If you'll notice, it's practitioners are constantly guilty of accusing others of that which they, themselves, are the worst offenders.

Equality and freedom are not wholly compatible. Whichever one you focus on more will produce less of the other. However, as Milton Friedman once pointed out, societies that aim for freedom over equality will tend to produce a higher degree of both. Whereas societies that aim for equality over freedom will typically end up with neither.


Thanks for the laughs. I needed this. It should really be in the humor and satire section, though.

 

I was obviously describing what would happen in the feudal/royal libertarian utopia with unbridled landowner parasitism. Still, landowning is a means of economic parasitism these days. Most taxes are levied on production and trade. Once that money is spend on infrastructure and services, it makes locations more desirable and more of necessity to be at, which increases land rents/values. The landowner is thus essentially a freeloader on the tax money the productive pay. The productive pay twice for the same: once in taxes to the government and then once to landowners in land rent/value created by taxes the productive pay. That's the short story.

 

So anyone who has the audacity to disagree with you, and think your beliefs are irrational, is by necessity a brainwashed statist? This is not just the case for you, but for most people at this forum, and people really need to accept and internalize this fact. You are not as smart and all-knowing as you think you are (I mean you as in the general you). Anyone who thinks they have a panacea that will solve or alleviate all or most of the worlds problems, is selling you nonsense!! Anyone who thinks the rationality of libertarianism can only be challenged by the brainwashed is deluding themselves.

Libertarianism is hardly the most intellectually rigorous school of thought. They tend to have very simplistic views of power, agency, state-making and its relationship to capitalism, and other fundamentally important concepts which are foundational to any political philosophy. It is hard to take seriously the notion that absent direct force from government, a state of freedom will exist. It is hard to take seriously the idea that only government limits freedom and liberty, and that the structural limitations which exist in every society do little or nothing to limit the freedom of liberty, and absent government people have nearly unlimited agency. It is hard to take seriously the idea that capitalism and government are oppositional force and that capitalism is an alternative to government power.

On top of that, many of the criticisms in the OP are legitimate and should be addressed. Instead everyone has ignored them and ranted about statists.

 

Libertarianism is just a pit-stop on the road to Fascism - no wonder the rightists love the idea

 

This article neatly destroys royal/feudal libertarianism, so it's a nice fit in this thread:

http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html

 

Oh stop. Libertarians are well meaning. They simply have intellectual blind spots. Most fundamentally they misunderstand capitalism and the role it plays in reinforcing state power.

 

They are far more utopian and egotistical than Socialists, IMO