Libertarianism just replaces governments with corporations, and doesn't lead to freedom!
Freedom is the ONLY thing that counts. I do acknowledge that Libertarians claim to want to pursue freedom.
However I believe that Libertarianism, will only replace tyrannical government with tyrannical rule by businesses.
The problem with governments no matter their political leaning is that most political ideologies lack any mechanism to deal with corruption and abuses of power.
Libertarianism seeks to deal with this by removing government and instead hand the power to private companies.
Companies are usually small dictatorships or even tyrannies. Handing them the power over all of society will only benefit the owners of these companies. The rest of society will basically be reduced to the status of slaves as they have no say over the direction of the society they maintain through their 9to5s.
These companies already control governments around the world through favors, bribes or other means such as regulatory capture or even by influencing the media and thereby manipulating the public's opinion through the advertisement revenue.
Our problems would only get worse, all the ills of today's society, lack of freedom, lack of peace, lack of just basic human decency will be vastly aggravated if we hand the entirety of control to people like petur tihel and allen mosque.
Instead the way to go about this is MORE democracy not less of it. The solution is to give average citizens more influence over the fate of society rather than less. However for that to happen we all need to fight ignorance and promote the spread of education. It has to become cool again to read books (or .epub/.mobi's lol)
The best way to resolve the the corruption issue is to not allow any individual to hold power, instead having a distributed system.
More of a community-driven government. Sort of like these workers owned companies. We should not delegate away our decision-making power. We should ourselves make the decisions.
Although this post is in English it does neither concern the ASU nor KU or any other English speaking countries, in particular. It's a general post addressing a world wide phenomenon.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
It's true that it's not really an unpopular opinion (especially here), but it's still thoughtful and well articulated. I thought it was more interesting than most posts.
I think you may have come up with the least unpopular opinion on Lemmy.
There's more people who are unabashed fans of Stalin and Mao than there are
libertarians.
Buuut...I mean, I'm not a libertarian, but I've taken libertarian ideas more
seriously than you have, so I can play devil's advocate.
The idea behind libertarianism isn't to hand power over to corporations; that's
just what detractors claim will happen. What they claim will happen is that
corporations will become far less powerful.
The nightmare cyberpunk scenario where companies acquire private militaries and
just physically take over doesn't really apply. The difference between
libertarians and anarchists is that the former do see a place for government,
usually including military, courts, policing, enforcement of contracts, and a
few other things. So companies would continue to have to earn your dollar the
old fashion way.
Now, think of industries that suck, where the companies are really shitty
causing people to complain about them all the time, but are nonetheless stuck
using them for lack of options.
Got some? Okay, now, were you thinking of electronics companies? No? How about
bedding, or kitchenware? Hardware & tools? Flooring? Children's toys? Food &
grocery?
Or...were you maybe thinking (depending where you live) of banking, airline,
healthcare, insurance, or telecom industries?
Okay, now, change of topic: think of some industries with lots of regulation and
government intervention.
Did you by any chance come up with the same list?
Lots of people will claim those industries are heavily regulated because they're
somehow inherently shitty, and need the government to step in to fix them.
Libertarians would say that those industries are shitty because regulations and
government interventions prevent competition and shelter incumbents. They don't
have to treat customers well anymore, or make particularly good products,
because their position is secure whether they do or not. In an actual free market, competition is easier, so it's harder for a company
to establish a monopoly.
An extreme example: Britain famously demanded Hong Kong
as compensation from China during the Opium Wars, and used it as a gateway to
Asia. They treated it with a sort of benign neglect: as long as the port was
functioning, they didn't pay that much attention to the operation of the
territory. It was not heavily regulated, to the point that even (for example)
the healthcare industry was basically regulation-free. You could literally
stick a sign on the door of your apartment claiming you were doctor, and start
treating people, and nobody would stop you.
So, since healthcare is one of those sacred industries that requires heavy
government regulation to protect people, the life expectancy and health outcomes
of Hong Kongers must have been abysmal, right? Well...no, it actually climbed
steadily throughout, and is #1 in the world today (though it should be noted
the situation re: regulation changed post-1997). And it was a hell of a lot
cheaper than American or European healthcare at every point.
There are industries where monopolies seem to form naturally. In my lifetime,
Microsoft, Facebook and Google have all been accused of being monopolistic.
There were calls for government intervention. But like...they were monopolies (or
got close, anyway) because lots of people chose to use them. Nobody was
forced. I couldn't stand Microsoft or Facebook, so I switched to Linux way back in the
90s and I've never really used Facebook at all. I do use some Google
products, because they're pretty good.
And I'm fine. Nobody ever threatened me. My life wasn't negatively affected
AFAICT. I just didn't use that product. Competitors appeared, like Linux & BSD,
Reddit, Lemmy, etc, and I liked those better so I used them instead. That was it.
Pretty boring as far as dystopias go.
The situation is a bit different when it comes to government. I can't opt in or
out, I'm just stuck. I mean, I can move (assuming I have enough cash to do it),
but fully extricating yourself from your home country is surprisingly hard: the
US will chase you around the world to claim taxes from your income. And you
immediately have to pick another country, and your options are severely
limited.
People talk about corporations in such dire terms. It's kind of mystifying to
me: just don't fucking use that corporation's products. Voila! You're free from
their insidious influence.
Ahh, but they corrupt government institutions with their lobbying money! The
libertarian answer is: have fewer government institutions, then. They can't
lobby to bend regulations in their favor if there are no regulations in the
first place. They would say that heavy regulation means incumbents are
protected from competition, and can thus extract more 'rent', meaning more
profit, which they can then turn towards warping the copious regulations in
their favor...meaning still more protection, more profit, and more regulatory
capture.
Like I said, I'm not a libertarian, but I understand their perspective, and I
think it should be more influential than it is. I can talk about how rent
control raises housing costs, or how "worker's rights" results in lower pay, or
how minimum wages are racist and sexist.
Or you can just call me names for taking libertarians seriously! That seems
like the more popular approach.
Now, think of industries that suck, where the companies are really shitty causing people to complain about them all the time, but are nonetheless stuck using them for lack of options.
...
Or…were you maybe thinking (depending where you live) of banking, airline, healthcare, insurance, or telecom industries?
Okay, now, change of topic: think of some industries with lots of regulation and government intervention.
Did you by any chance come up with the same list?
Typical libertarian blather.
In each one of these cases the industry predates the regulation. The regulation of banking is a response to the shitty behaviour of pre-regulation banks. Ditto for airlines, health care, insurance, telecom, etc. etc. etc.
The old adage "each regulation is written in blood" applies (albeit the blood being metaphorical in some cases).
The libertarian cinematic universe (coughRandroidscough) has it that businessmen were just chugging along merrily making a profit when suddenly, out of nowhere, the government leaped in to slap regulations on things. The reality is that regulations (which are themselves, naturally, not perfect, often applied long after the need has vanished, and prone to being corrupted) are a response to corporate malfeasance. Very few regulations are made ahead of the fact. (Politicians are constitutionally incapable of thinking ahead, after all.)
So airlines being heavily-regulated? Go look at the history of the airline industry. Look at the accident rates caused by the complete and utter profiteering of early airlines. Then ask yourself if regulation made these industries evil, or if perhaps regulations came in because of the evil of said industries.
In each one of these cases the industry predates the regulation.
Yeah, I preempted you and pointed out that's the argument of the 'other' side.
There are some cases where you can argue that regulation was a response to abuses. I'd agree with banking. I gave a counterpoint re: healthcare, where free market healthcare worked really well.
Telecom was largely rolled out by government monopolies, in order to do it quickly. Then (at least in Canada, where I'm from), the government basically passed monopolistic government bodies to private companies, with a little "make sure to allow competition!" clause. Surprise surprise, there's basically 1-2 telecom companies per province in Canada today, and they've captured the fuck out of regulatory bodies. Corporations are corporations, and they're gonna seek profit. That's a good thing if they're competing and struggling, but terrible if you pass them a harness and whip.
I'm skeptical about airlines & insurance. They'd have worked themselves out eventually, if left to market forces, but that's never been allowed to happen.
Early airlines were a mess, but the last 50 years have been incredibly safe. You're like 1000x safer in a plane than a car. I've seen arguments that such extreme safety regulations are actually causing thousands of deaths per year: the level of regulation significantly raises the price (I've seen 2x as a rough estimate, no idea how accurate that is), which causes a lot of people to drive instead of fly--and driving is 1000x less safe, so lots of them die in car accidents. If flying were only a few hundred times safer than driving, and prices dropped by 25%, it might save hundreds of lives due to fewer car accidents.
There's this problem with regulation: nobody ever lost their bureaucratic job by being too careful. If you're a government bureaucrat and you eased up regulations on airlines (or food & drug safety, or building codes, etc), and that caused some incident that killed a person or two, you could be offered up as a sacrifice to public rage--even if the same relaxation of regulations saved lives by encouraging (safer) flying over driving, or made drugs available that saves hundreds of lives, or made housing 13% cheaper in some given city. The benefits are diffuse, the harm is acute--and newsworthy. And what's the upside for you, as a bureaucrat? You don't get a raise, or a bonus, or even a pat on the back for lower housing prices or exciting new cancer treatments.
So: restrict, limit, contain, regulate. That's the only sane thing to do. Make a big deal about how safe you're keeping everybody. Nobody will ever know that thousands of lives could have been saved, or housing could've been affordable, or travel could've been quicker, etc, if you'd eased up on regulations. You, the bureaucrat, will never face the counterexample--or the costs associated with overregulation.
So, since healthcare is one of those sacred industries that requires heavy government regulation to protect people, the life expectancy and health outcomes of Hong Kongers must have been abysmal, right? Well…no
Wasn't the state of healthcare at the time somewhere between useless and actively harmful? Not much use in regulating what the experts of the day are completely wrong about.
Anyway my issue with much of the argumentation you've presented here, despite there being many reasonable points, is that most libertarians seem to simply not care at all whether their predictions of how well unfettered capitalism will go are realistic or true. It's just talking points to them, because if they weren't true, it would still be justified to favor absolute property rights over everything else. That's what they really care about, the justice of no one getting to touch their stuff, and it outweighs everything else.
Which is frustrating, because despite their rare willingness to drill down into specifics, it's a clear point of biased disingenuousness. If the only thing a point means to someone is that if it is made one way others might be persuaded of their cause, the incentive is to only understand it that particular way, and never realize or admit if it's wrong.
My issue with the core ethos is, a person's ability to opt out of things very often depends on how poor they are, and so if property is liberty, it's only liberty for those with the property.
The state of healthcare in the 1960s through the 1990s? I mean, it wasn't that bad. Life expectancy at the time was rising very quickly in developed countries--and in Hong Kong.
Libertarians can drive me crazy too, and I agree that a lot of them are driven by ideology, not practicality. And a lot of them can't even make these arguments in defense of their own beliefs--they just come at it from a simple moral POV ("taxes are violence!"). But that's not unique to libertarians: most people hold to ideologies they don't fully understand, which is why they defend them rabidly with insults and attacks, instead of just explaining why they believe what they do. "I believe we should do this because it's right, and I'll get mad if you try to explain why it's impractical, impossible, or counterproductive!" is an attitude I hear more often, if anything, from the Left.
And, well, in a libertarian world, your ability to opt out of things may depend, to some extent, on your wealth--but (they would say) it's easier for people to get wealthy in general. And as I pointed out in my original post...well...no, it's not really true. I opt out of Facebook and Microsoft and other 'monopolies', and I'm just fine. Why would that change? But I really, actually can't opt out of the state, and the bigger the state gets the more restricted we are. So, the solution to "if the libertarians got their way, some people would be more free than others" is "we should significantly restrict freedom overall, for everybody"?
These points seem pretty reasonable, wonder what's wrong with them since you mentioned you're not actually a libertarian?
You also mentioned businesses that tend to become monopolies, and more generally, there seem to be types of business that don't really play well in a free market. One non-monopoly example could be antibiotics, since we're all worse off the more they're consumed. Another example is natural resources exploitation: competition won't stop these resources from running out. I know close to nothing about economics but shouldn't it be pretty straightforward to figure out which businesses or which business aspects are the ones that benefit from free market? It seems mostly a technical question.
I'm pro-gun control. I like public transit. I think cities should be organized to some extent. Countries that managed large-scale cooperation did much better during the pandemic. Global warming is hard to solve in a pure libertarian system. There are lots of reasons why I'm not a libertarian.
I wish it were nice and simple to identify where regulation helps and where it doesn't, but it's the source of endless debates.
It's impossible to respond to all of your points, but I wanted to respond to one of them: part of the regulation is cartel law, which was needed because in a "free" (as in, no regulation) market, businesses did not in fact compete with each other to beat out their rivals, but they colluded with each other to keep prices high.
Because simple logic is that when perfect competition would be happening, then no one would earn any profit, since they would need to make their services/goods cheaper and cheaper to acquire market share, until no one has any margins or only one business is left that operates most efficiently. Both of these results have actually been happening.
Everyone in a market actually makes more profit if they don't compete with each other and make prices arbitrarily fixed. (Or only one is left, in which case prices will again be arbitrary). This has been happening so much that regulation was needed. Regulation is what made the actual spirit behind a free market possible, because without it, it'd either be cartels or monopolies.
What!? No! That’s not what the free part refers to in the term “free market”.
A free market is one in which the actors are free to engage or not engage in business with others. The presence of a cartel is a step away from a free market because the existence of that cartel removes consumers’ freedom to choose between competing providers.
Don't have any counterarguments? Don't let that stop you! Just throw out some insults and act as though a serious reply is beneath you, given your superior understanding of the world. If confronted, gesture broadly at the comment you're replying to and say something like "that third point you made is stupid!" Don't bother elaborating or explaining why. Everybody will probably think you're a professor of economics who's just sick of explaining himself or something!
Instead the way to go about this is MORE democracy not less of it.
Agreed. Some good steps to take:
Switching to approval/STAR voting (far fewer flaws than FPTP, generaly better than ranked)
Requiring all companies to be worker owned democracies. We don't accept dictators or monarchists in government, so why would we accept that kind of tyranny in our work?
Shit loads of anti-corruption efforts. As of right now, politics is controlled with money, and politicians effectively get a free pass to use their office for personal gain. That shit needs to end.
Libertarianism denies humanity. Exalting the individual as the basic unit of society is the political equivalent to a spherical cow in a vacuum. The human mind and body deteriorate in isolation; we need others to even think or be healthy.
The individual in isolation also happens to be the weakest political unit. It's almost like the ruling class invented the an ideology for the serfs to demand feudalism. An ideology that not only rejects collective action, but short circuits any attempt. A group of libertarians is called an impasse.
Prioritizing the rational individual causes irrationality in society. Tens of thousands of rational decisions to go home at the same time lead to the irrationality of traffic.
I love the concept of government, it's a state mechanism that when it works correctly, society advances and everything works. The problem it, it require constant citizens involvement in order to keep it in check.
How can anyone take it seriously now of all times? Libertarianism in the modern day is being fronted by hack stand up comedians who ran out of material so they went with the political shtick to stay relevant. They don't actually believe in anything other than enriching themselves
Companies are usually small dictatorships or even tyrannies. Handing them the power over all of society will only benefit the owners of these companies. The rest of society will basically be reduced to the status of slaves as they have no say over the direction of the society they maintain through their 9to5s.
Well said. It's so weird how gullible people can be.
The problem is that no single person can educate themselves strongly enough on every potential topic. That's why we're supposed to have representatives to spend all day in a specific area of expertise. I could be jobless, and study this stuff all day every day, 24/7 and STILL not be educated enough to vote on a bill and claim to understand all of the nuances and interactions with society that would ripple out from that decision.
And have you seen society? Do you REALLY want some of these idiots voting? They don't even care to educate themselves - so it's easy to influence them with advertisements and campaigns.
Incompetence is definitely a problem. I would counter that by saying: Just because somebody is competent, doesn't mean they have good intentions. I mean somebody could be competent enough to do the right thing, but have bad intentions. In that case the competence of the representative does the voter no good.
You are right, like Churchill said 5 minutes of conversation with anybody are the best argument against democracy. And if you are horrified by some of the people who are voting, are you not at all worried of being ruled by such types exclusively?
I would not be worried about being "ruled" by those types, so long as we had protections in place that actually had teeth. We need a foundation where people doing shady shit are put in jail, especially if they reside in a place of power.
The FBI actually did a bribery-sting operation on our congress long ago and like half of congress failed it. So what happened? They made it illegal to run those sting operations on congress. That immediately should be repealed and congress-critters should be held accountable for their actions.
Well the US got trump because of a degenerate electorate : sufficiently detached from the issues by distraction and/or ignorance that they are unable make an informed vote .
The problem is capitalist libertarians don't see corporations as a power structure, just simply as an expression of individual effort. There's no libertarian conception of a corporation as a collective unit or a way to exert influence; libertarians see a corporation as a random group of individuals who voluntarily join a leader.
Lots of people have been raised to think "government is bad" without any critical thoughts about what the alternatives to government would realistically be.
"Government is bad" has been a republican talking point since at least the 80s.
Subsidies for big business, regulatory capture and other forms of corporate rent seeking are all things libertarians are against. For big L libertarians you even have party platforms.
I thought Libertarianism promoted the removal of government regulations and allowing companies to do as they please. Basically let the markets regulate themselves. For example not having environmental regulations instead hoping customers vote with their feet. Am I misunderstanding Libertarianism?
No, not at all. Right Wing libertarians are just embarrassed capitalist. That haven't found the one thing that makes them want to come out in the open as fascist or a conspiracy theory enthusiast. Actual libertarians, those on the left. Are equally concerned about people's freedom "from" things. As they are people's freedom "to do" things. They're opposed to large many level government, that obfuscates while at the same time consolidating power. Not government itself.
Actual libertarians are just as horrified by the brutality and cruelty of under regulated corporations, as they are large government behemoths.
The origin of libertarians and left libertarianism is inconvenient though. And something never touched on outside poly sci courses. Pretty much any libertarian you've likely been exposed to would fall under the neo-libertarian moniker. Like the neo liberals and neo conservatives. Right wing reactionary groups forming in reaction to the red scare of the mid 20th century. Right wing libertarianism itself has its origins in the 50s and 60s. Murray, rothbard, Milton Friedman, Frederick Hyak and a few others are generally seen as the fathers of it. Where actual libertarianism's origins go back another 100 years.
But when it comes to who has the wealth and resources to promote their ideology. Wealthy thieves always win out in the end. And they largely set the standards by which we are all educated.
I thought Libertarianism promoted the removal of government regulations...
In some cases yes but its not universal nor is that belief universal among all Libertarians.
... and allowing companies to do as they please.
I'm a Registered Libertarian and aside from Anarcho-Capitalists, which are only small number of Libertarians, this simply isn't true.
In nearly all version of Libertarianism the Courts are still around and still function. Corporations who impugn on the liberties of others are still subject to lawsuits.
It can depend, since it's a large ideological umbrella. Big L (party) peeps tend to prefer environmental damage be handled as damaging property, so it'd be hashed out in the courts. Some minarchists are fine with certain types of regulation anyway.
Voting with your feet would be for things that aren't just straight up violation of your rights.
“I’m against murder, but I leave loaded guns around daycares.” Corruption is the natural state of things at scale. I realize that this isn’t necessarily your opinion that you’re voicing but libertarians always strike me as equal parts naive and willfully malicious.
I've got feet in both left and right. I'm much more anti-corporatist than most. Large corps are only possible due to limited liability and shit like IP. I'd like to see those laws gradually changed so that risk they take on isn't covered by the rest of us.
I'm not a genius or a magician so I'm not 100% sure how exactly to implement things, but trade and governance are technologies and if we eliminate adverse incentives we should be able to steadily grow as a society.
I mean, libertarianism is a broad concept that extends way past the Koch-funded redefining of the word. Bakunin would strongly disagree that a libertarianistic society would require control resting in the hands of the oligarchs/businesses.
I'd agree that more democracy is the right way. We live in a world where the public could actually vote on any and all choices a community has to take. Would this be good though? I doubt it.
I don't belive that the public is able to make the rigt decisions without at least some more insights than the average citizen has. This is why the system is set up with ministers and their offices who theoretically should know more about every being decided on.
The public will vote for what it thinks is good for themselves but this is not always the best direction for a community to do sometime the right thing to do is not popular or even comfortable. We just need better politicians who are in it for the community and not the money
I disagree with giving more influence to average citizens, average citizens are dumb, racist and make bad decisions, Brexit is an example, the rise of the far right is another.
Both of your examples of how 'the average person is dumb' are actually examples of how a group of people were (and still are) manipulated by people in power with hidden agendas. To quote Jorah Mormont from ASOIAF, "The common people pray for rain, health and a summer that never ends. They don’t care what game the high lords play." Most people don't care about who their State Representative is because it will have little to no VISIBLE impact on their day-to-day lives, which is where most of their problems come from. Do I think I'm smarter than the average person and could fix all of society's problems myself with enough money and influence? Sure! So do a lot of people, I'd argue even a majority; I'm pretty sure you think you could. But that's not how the world works. Humans are a social species, and we have built a society that can only operate if we all work together, and that includes listening to all opinions (yes, even the bad ones) and logically making decisions that try to minimize any negative impacts. You can't just say, "That person is dumb, racist, and makes bad decisions, so I don't think they should have any influence at all" because that is how you end up dehumanizing people
Just to clarify: This post seems to only talk about American libertarianism. Libertarianism is a very different thing in the rest of the world, closely related to socialism, anarchism and democracy.
Reading Atlas Shrugged is actually what broke me out of my teenage libertarian phase. I saw the central conflict of the book as those who were willing to engage with reality (the industrialists) vs. those who wouldn't engage with reality (the bleeding hearts). However when I turned my mind to the real world it was easy to see that the people ruled by their feelings and far more likely to reject reality were the conservatives and the business types that the book wanted you to believe were the heroes when, in fact, they were just the more long winded. Galt's arrogant and literally 3 hour long speech (I listened to the audiobook) gives the lie to the idea that this was a confident truth sayer and revealed him to be just a guy who would speak until others had no choice but to believe him. He's the guy from "Thank You For Smoking", an unprincipled blowhard. And the people that followed him were just soft minded, listless, and selfish enough to only want what was good for themselves
From most perspectives, freedom is power. And one person's freedom is another person's slavery.
If you bring it back to the roots of life's purpose: to procreate exponentially. It always comes down to doing better than your neighbor.
You can come up with all the moral rules of thumbs you like, like "your rights stops where my nose begin". At the end of the day, if what John is doing enables him to procreate exponentially faster than Jack. Then Jack (on an evolutionary level) will perceive John as evil.
But "on an evolutionary level" isn't really a real thing. It manifests itself in our dreams and feelings. Like how we get envious of people who do better than us or how we feel pride when we do better than others.
It gets complicated because of the effectiveness of cooperation. Which is where things like altruism, compassion and empathy come from.
But even here, evolution tries to pierce through it with things like hypocrisy, subconscious bias and tribal allegiance.
From this context, I believe that for most people freedom is a feeling they get when they do better than the people around them, when they are more powerful than them. It makes for a good slogan, because everyone wants to feel free, the theory says that everyone can be free, but the practice is that not everyone can feel free.
When you use freedom as your theoretical basis of government, it sounds good. But in practice, people will have slightly different interpretation of what freedom means to them, one where they'll feel free but others won't.
You might think now, that we should simply work on a clear and objective definition for freedom, but that definition you're looking for is one where you'll feel free, but many others will feel oppressed.
The best way to resolve the the corruption issue is to not allow any individual to hold power [...[.
That's part of it, probably the biggest part of it. You also want a system that can come to a consensus through compromise when resolving social issues. You also want a system that is efficient and powerful (to compete against other societies).
But going back to the corruption thing. It's not enough, people can organise around an ideal to oppress entire groups. You can have a system where not individual or small group of individual hold power, but one where the whites can oppress the blacks, or the Christians can oppress the Atheists, etc....
Creating a system that substantially reduces corruption is insanely difficult. Corruption is the lynchpin of all the alternate systems being proposed, none are as good as the current system of capitalism + regulation + democracy.
What that system does, is it pretty much gives up on trying to eliminate corruption. Instead it tries to redirect its energies and minimize the damage it causes.
Basically, someone trying to become powerful in a capitalist system, is sort of cajoled into working hard to improve society.
The democracy + regulation aspect is what minimizes the damages caused.
Eventually, the "democracy + regulation" does get captured, and while it's pretty bad compared to how these systems should work, they still tend to perform their function to some extent.
If you contrast this with something like communism or socialism. Those seeking power immediately start by dismantling the systems that prevent corruption. The pressure is so strong, the system will collapse almost instantly, and I think history shows this to be the case.
As for Libertarian, I don't know. You always got someone who will show up telling you that you don't know what "True" libertarian is. When there's actually 200 different true libertarian and each requires 10,000 hours of study to fully understand.
But the few discussions I've had has been enough to convince me that the vast majority are either some kind of survivalist or people who see themselves as effective local business leaders. They just think that's a system that will shift the balance of power in their favor and many of them won't even deny it if you straight up ask them. They're sick of feeling oppressed and they want to become the oppressor.
But generally, it seems to me that most Libertarian systems fail to account for bad state actors. These libertarian systems tends to favor a system that shifts the balance of power to local groups. But has no system in place to keep that power local. There's no way this won't immediately lead to civil war, with the winner setting up a dictatorship.
From most perspectives, freedom is power. And one person's freedom is another person's slavery.
If you bring it back to the roots of life's purpose: to procreate exponentially. It always comes down to doing better than your neighbor.
You can come up with all the moral rules of thumbs you like, like "your rights stops where my nose begin". At the end of the day, if what John is doing enables him to procreate exponentially faster than Jack. Then Jack (on an evolutionary level) will perceive John as evil.
But "on an evolutionary level" isn't really a real thing. It manifests itself in our dreams and feelings. Like how we get envious of people who do better than us or how we feel pride when we do better than others.
It gets complicated because of the effectiveness of cooperation. Which is where things like altruism, compassion and empathy come from.
But even here, evolution tries to pierce through it with things like hypocrisy, subconscious bias and tribal allegiance.
From this context, I believe that for most people freedom is a feeling they get when they do better than the people around them, when they are more powerful than them. It makes for a good slogan, because everyone wants to feel free, the theory says that everyone can be free, but the practice is that not everyone can feel free.
When you use freedom as your theoretical basis of government, it sounds good. But in practice, people will have slightly different interpretation of what freedom means to them, one where they'll feel free but others won't.
You might think now, that we should simply work on a clear and objective definition for freedom, but that definition you're looking for is one where you'll feel free, but many others will feel oppressed.
The best way to resolve the the corruption issue is to not allow any individual to hold power [...[.
That's part of it, probably the biggest part of it. You also want a system that can come to a consensus through compromise when resolving social issues. You also want a system that is efficient and powerful (to compete against other societies).
But going back to the corruption thing. It's not enough, people can organise around an ideal to oppress entire groups. You can have a system where not individual or small group of individual hold power, but one where the whites can oppress the blacks, or the Christians can oppress the Atheists, etc....
Creating a system that substantially reduces corruption is insanely difficult. Corruption is the lynchpin of all the alternate systems being proposed, none are as good as the current system of capitalism + regulation + democracy.
What that system does, is it pretty much gives up on trying to eliminate corruption. Instead it tries to redirect its energies and minimize the damage it causes.
Basically, someone trying to become powerful in a capitalist system, is sort of cajoled into working hard to improve society.
The democracy + regulation aspect is what minimizes the damages caused.
Eventually, the "democracy + regulation" does get captured, and while it's pretty bad compared to how these systems should work, they still tend to perform their function to some extent.
If you contrast this with something like communism or socialism. Those seeking power immediately start by dismantling the systems that prevent corruption. The pressure is so strong, the system will collapse almost instantly, and I think history shows this to be the case.
As for Libertarian, I don't know. You always got someone who will show up telling you that you don't know what "True" libertarian is. When there's actually 200 different true libertarian and each requires 10,000 hours of study to fully understand.
But the few discussions I've had has been enough to convince me that the vast majority are either some kind of survivalist or people who see themselves as effective local business leaders. They just think that's a system that will shift the balance of power in their favor and many of them won't even deny it if you straight up ask them. They're sick of feeling oppressed and they want to become the oppressor.
But generally, it seems to me that most Libertarian systems fail to account for bad state actors. These libertarian systems tends to favor a system that shifts the balance of power to local groups. But has no system in place to keep that power local. There's no way this won't immediately lead to civil war, with the winner setting up a dictatorship.
No, in short the libertarian movements name got appropriated by progressives in the 1900s. Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of libertarianism which advocates free market and laissez-faire economics; and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, economic freedom, political freedom and freedom of speech.[1] Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation.[2]
Until the Great Depression and the rise of social liberalism, classical liberalism was called economic liberalism. Later, the term was applied as a retronym, to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from social liberalism.[3] By modern standards, in the United States, simple liberalism often means social liberalism, but in Europe and Australia, simple liberalism often means classical liberalism.[4][5]
Classical liberalism gained full flowering in the early 18th century, building on ideas starting at least as far back as the 16th century, within the Iberian, Anglo-Saxon, and central European contexts, and it was foundational to the American Revolution and "American Project" more broadly.[6][7][8] Notable liberal individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke,[9] Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on classical economics, especially the economic ideas as espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations, and on a belief in natural law,[10] social progress,[11] and utilitarianism.[12]