The only way for libertarianism to work is if every human had only good intentions. Since that’s simply never going to happen libertarianism will never work. Just my opinion feel free to disagree.
Libertarianism is a theory espoused to those with good intentions by people that have bad intentions.
It doesn’t work for almost anyone. But it super works for some. That’s the point.
The problem is that it doesn't work even if everyone has good intentions. It needs everyone to agree on what "good intentions" even means.
I think you are possibly confusing libertarianism with anarchism. Libertarianism does not make the argument that the state is well functioning without a central authoritative mediating body -- I point you to the model of a Nightwatchman State.
Also there's the fact that nearly everybody's idea of freedom is drastically different and some people's freedoms infringe on others.
Also there’s the fact that nearly everybody’s idea of freedom is drastically different
Libertarianism seeks to maximise freedom.
some people’s freedoms infringe on others.
Libertarianism does not, in any way, shape, or form, advocate the idea that one is able infringe on the rights, and freedoms of another without their consent. One should not be allowed to impart a cost on another without their consent, or proper compensation for damages.
I personally don't fully agree. Libertarianism just doesn't work at all. It is not even a complete system from a logical sense. It falls apart when faced with basic scrutiny, or they just theorize a system that's basically the same as a central government but with a private entity name stamped on it.
It is an ideology stemming from a basic principle, but they sadly don't seem to think of the entire system as a whole.
hey just theorize a system that’s basically the same as a central government but with a private entity name stamped on it.
I don't believe that any informed libertarian would advocate for a corporatocracy.
Libertarianism just doesn’t work at all. It is not even a complete system from a logical sense. It falls apart when faced with basic scrutiny
Would you be able to give some specific examples to back up your claim?
Why do you say this? There would exist a justice system to protect individual, and property rights through tort law, just as there is now.
Libertarianism also works if there is information about bad people and good people are free to avoid them.
Freedom of information and freedom of action.
It's easier to avoid bad people in free markets than it is to prevent them from taking and abusing positions of power in a powerful state.
Except freedom of information and freedom of action are two of the first things to die without regulation. Company towns and crooked newspapers are hallmarks of low-regulation.
It's easier to vote bad people out of positions of power in a powerful state than it is to prevent them from abusing executive roles in powerful conglomerates.
Respectfully, I think the opposite. I think, for the most part, a free(r) market naturally benefits humans with good intentions and harms those with bad intentions.
For example, let's say in a free market, somebody wanted to start a business with horrible working conditions, horrible salary, horrible everything. Now, if the economy is real bad then people might work there, but for the most part, that business is going to fail because people won't work there, and would choose other jobs instead. So in this case, a free market actually incentivizes "good intentions". The business owner will have to improve work conditions, salary, etc. so that people will work there instead of elsewhere.
And one of the important aspects of a free market is the ability to start a competing business. If there was a company with overall poor working conditions and salary, it would highly incentivize someone to start a new company with better conditions, because they could pull in all the workers from the other company.
And look, I'm not saying this is fool proof and works 100% of the time, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be a healthy amount of regulation. But if you compare this to an economic system where businesses are run by the government, you can simply just be stuck with shitty work conditions and shitty salary, and not be able to do anything about it.
My concern is that "bad product" to the consumer is mostly a matter of price and quality; environmental impact, legality, and even employee safety rank much lower with the average person as far as choosing where to spend their money. Companies can and do operate for years on the suffering of the lower class in particular, often openly doing so, and still make oodles of money.
It’s just like socialism; great concept, but impossible to perfectly implement. That said, I’d still prefer a system where I maintain independence and freedom than any alternative since humans are inherently are own largest problems.
It’s just like socialism; great concept, but impossible to perfectly implement
Would you mind defining "impossible to perfectly implement"? I don't want to draw conclusions based on interperetations of that statement.
That's where operating it using Algocracy comes in.
Yeah the main lesson I've taken away from the last decade of cryptocurrency instability, NFTs, and things like algorithmically generated judicial sentencing guidelines that perpetuated the existing racial biases while making them seem more legitimate because "the computer can't be wrong" is that we should run our whole society with them.
Surely that citydao wasn't created by someone with profit motives and not aware that in a few years it will be another worthless and abandoned NFT-bullshit.
Zoning for single-family housing is regulation and is done to boost landlord profits at the expense of working people.
The mortgage-interest tax deduction only benefits wealthier households, while giving nothing to poorer households who rent.
There are many regulations that artificially funnel money upward and would be improved by "deregulating" those parts. Deregulation doesn't have to mean removing safety procedures.
If the states and cities legalized dense housing then much poverty would be relieved.
Sure. I don't think anybody is arguing that there is any country that couldn't give their regulations a once-over and improve things by removing a few counter-productive ones here and there.
That's not what American style libertarians are actually arguing when they say they want deregulation though, is it?
That's generally the type of thing libertarians get upset about. Or shit like floral licensing or cracking down on people braiding hair (this is generally black people, obviously) or the bazillion other types of regulatory capture. Farm subsidies and ethanol mandates/fuel subsidies are also a shitshow.
Exactly! Libertarians point to one regulation that isn’t working and push total deregulation. Why not just fix that one regulation? No, absolute deregulation is the only answer.
Exactly. It's stupid to be like libertarians and take a hardline stance on "regulations always bad!!" or "regulations always good!!". A regulation that bans building dense, walkable communities is bad and needs to be eliminated. Likewise, regulations that ban teachers from talking about the existence of gay people are also bad and need to be eliminated.
Just like we try to use regulations for good, many others use regulations for ill. It will always be context-specific specific whether we need more regulation or deregulation.
When actual libertarians get a chance to run a town, they don't start by eliminating zoning laws. This is the kind of thing that happens instead.
You talk as if benefiting the ruling class was an unwanted consequence of these laws. It’s not. The markets need to be free for the rich to benefit but restricted for the rich to benefit. And maybe some crumbs will fall of the table and the poors will think that the rich are so generous.
That's the irony.
But Density means communism to them so they're suddenly fine with regulations and taxes that prop up an unsustainable suburban ponzi scheme because that's the lie sold about the American Dream.
When they see how unaffordable housing has become they say, "good, my house is more expensive."
The difference is that they think that gatekeeping poor people from services in order to bring costs down for everyone else is valid. I've seen libertarians argue that the solution to tuition and healthcare being expensive is to stop helping poor people, because that will drive demand down and lower prices for people who can already afford it. I've seen libertarians argue that the solution to people scalping groceries is to let grocery stores price gouge. Their solutions only ever involve helping people who don't need help at the expense of people who do. Libertarianism is "me, me, me right now now now" dressed up in fancy language. It's the political philosophy of a tumor.
Libertarianism is a great system if you're using it as a backdrop for a cyberpunk dystopia.
It's great if the concept of a conscience is disgusting to you and you're proud of all the progress you made that was even partly because of the things you're trying to get rid of
You won me over at cyberpunk.
"It's the political philosophy of a tumor." Fantastic analogy!
they advocate for genocide basically.
Yeah way too many people don't recognize the methods of passive genocide as being such.
"We're not going to put you in death camps per se; we're just going to lock you out of every effective means of social and financial advancement, continually reduce the amount of money you're able to make to feed yourself, and also refuse to feed, shelter, or clothe you. What's the problem? It's not like we're putting you in death camps."
If it helps at all, mostly it just hurts even those it's supposed to help while the upper class reaps the rewards.
“We live in a society” - the jonkler
“Not if I can help it” - libertarians
**beef stroganoff starts
As far as I can tell, the ones with money want a free hand to do whatever they want to others without repercussion, and the ones without money are willfully drinking the Kool Aid and being led around by the nose philosophically.
So Republicans then.
I can't tell the difference. 🤷
Being Libertarian means never having to admit you’re a Republican
Libertarians are just Republicans that want to smoke weed.
Be fair. Some of them are republicans who are more open about not wanting age of consent to be a thing.
I really hate this sentiment because if you actually look into the libertarian party platform and their recent candidates, they are nothing like Republicans. LP has supported LGBTQ+ rights for decades, they support open borders, support social freedom, don't like religion in govt, etc. I mean, the only real overlap between the LP and Republican party is like, guns. I know many people would argue that they have similar economic policies but they really don't, all Republicans have done in the last twenty years is spend more money and specifically only remove the regulations that are actually useful.
But at the same time, whenever I meet someone who calls themselves a "libertarian"... yeah 90% of the time they are just edgy Republicans.
I've always said a Libertarian is a Republican who is trying to sleep with a Democrat. Vice versa works too.
You ever hear a libertarian complain about flying? Fascinating one-person debate about airlines and deregulation.
Typically they argue the government is the cause of the problems (which is frequently correct) and the solution is to remove regulations that create the inefficiencies (which rarely goes to plan and frequently involves enriching them).
It's clownish just for different reasons than the meme suggests.
Their solution to an inefficient fly swatter is to get rid of it, spread honey over every surface, and offer to sell their services as an exterminator.
What an incredible analogy
Government is only part of the problem. When they fail to see the ruling class behind it, they don't get too far.
Believing Libertarians argue in good faith. 🤡
Thats cause if they argue in good faith they wont be Libertarians for long.
How is it that free market's modus operandi seem to be attempting suicide every few years?
It's not free enough!!!!
No joke, though, there are people who think that letting things hit the wall as fast and hard as possible is desirable. It's called accelerationism.
Because boom and bust cycles are how wealth flows upward.
Most "libertarians" are this dumb, but the old school ones at least attribute the problems to uneven regulation rigged in favor of the ruling class, which does jive with my understanding of what is wrong with the financial system. That being said, libertarianism wouldn't work even if they did get shit straight.
The vast majority of libertarians are (in my experience) just conservatives that want to smoke weed. They believe a lot of the same awful shit. The rest of them have deluded themselves into thinking that a libertarian society is viable when it is laughably not. They generally consider themselves to be way more capable and independent than reality can support.
Many years ago a bunch got together and essentially took over a town. Several years later the town got over ran by bears because no one wanted to handle trash properly.
Unfortunately Libertarians suffer from the abject stupidity of "libertarians"
Very few of us have read Locke and Through and run on the ideals of the Non Aggression Principle but we do exist.
Simply stated if you're arguing with a "libertarian" And their point of view would be an attack on another person or group or a trespass on another's rights they're probably not a libertarian.
The purpose of government is the monopoly of violence. Ideally this violence should only be used to protect rights and not violate them. Unfortunately it is often the case that government violates rights. Libertarians do not like that.
El libertarian society is a trust based society strengthened by voluntary engagement. In short you're allowed to sell poison if you label it as poison but you're not allowed to sell medicine that is actually poison.
Unironically Ron Swanson is a pretty apt description of accurate libertarian philosophy.
i thought being a libertarian was cool when i was 20 and wanted to smoke weed but didn't know how to get any
North America has never been a free market. Even since the days of Sumer have there been regulations on commerce. We will never have a free market.
We have never had a perfect version of anything but are we pursuing perfection or good enough?
You could say the same about abandoning capitalism for another type of economy wholesale.
The point is that there has always been regulation because when we have tried removing it (look up grain shortage in France during the mid to late 1700's due to export deregulation) and it ends up the same. Deregulation isn't the answer.
There is no "seeking perfect deregulation", only the admittance that deregulation cannot be part of the perfect solution.
I kept reading that as librarian
I did too and was about to throw hands in defence of my local library
I’m sorry but anyone who thinks we’re actually in a free capitalist system is delusional. The freedom is a lie they sell us to perpetuate the system.
Free capitalism leads to this.
If you had more free capitalism it would just consolidate into neofeudalism faster.
An actual 100% free market would be rife with drug and human trafficking.
It's good to have some regulation, and by and large the US is a mostly free market. You are free to start almost any business you want.
Am I missing something that makes the image 18+?
Accidentally clicked nsfw when uploading, my bad.
The same free market that would kill them for a Klondike bar? Sounds about right.
Do you people actually think the housing market is a free market????? It's one of the most overly regulated markets! Zoning laws restrict what kind of housing can be built all over the US. Getting rid of those would allow for more mixed style housing and that is one example of de-regulation and making a freer market.
It would also allow Exxon to install an oil rig 15 feet away from your backyard privacy fence and there's not shit you can do about it. Zoning laws exist for a reason. They're a bit shit, yes, and changing the way they work would go a long way toward improving America's reliance on cars. But blanket removal of regulations is never the answer for any industry anywhere. We should know better by this point that unregulated capitalists will extract every last drop of value from a given proposition with no regard to anyone else impacted by it. It's happened hundreds of times already.
I feel there's a lot of room for movement between "oil rig 15 feet away" and "single family housing only zones".
Remember, slavery was a free market solution.
Indeed. I would argue that the free market, itself, carries no inherent morals. The morals, instead, lie within the consumers, and businesses. If the consumers are opposed to slavery, then, on moral grounds, it would be expected that they would boycott such a business. As such, a business would be inclined to not use such forms of labour since the public wouldn't give them their business; however, it seems that the populace doesn't care too much about those under the employ of a company as evidenced the rampant use of child labour, sweatshops, and poor human rights conditions by major corporations with foreign manufacturing -- if the public is not opposed to such forms of obviously cheaper labour, then the market will certainly make use of them.
That assumes the consumer has perfect knowledge of a businesses practices and has the resources to vote with their wallet. Businesses are incentivised to conceal any actions that would cause them to lose customers, not stop those actions. They are also incentivised to eliminate competition so consumers don't have a choice but to buy from them regardless of business practices.
I'm a engineer in the construction industry. Some regulations can be almost universally agreed to be good and useful, building codes for example. I could argue about how stupid some parts of a code are, but I agree adopting the codes are a crucial life safety regulation.
The problem is every single regulation/rule/law adds costs and time to a construction project, so there's absolutely no way to "regulate" a way out of this problem. The longer and more expensive the construction process is, the more and more design teams and contractors focus on the higher dollar projects. I just got done designing a 104 room hotel similar to a nice Holiday Inn. I've done low income housing projects in the past but right now large corporations are the only ones with the war chest to be able to fund the process of Zoning review, architectural review boards, random city review boards where they have implemented their own local standards.
I have a client where we design 4-7 similar sized commercial buildings per year. In one town it took over a year to go from final construction plans being submitted to the city, to getting final approval to break ground from that city. In the time it took to get that building permit we started and finished the next design, found a contractor, got a building permit(different city), and the building was half built.
Sounds more like it's an investment issue and less a logistics issue. Regulation can absolutely help shift markets. Getting all of the rich fucks out of residential realestate would be a wonderful step 1...
It certainly becomes a investment issues due to increasing costs. Regulations play a part in that. Freeing up existing inventory by banning STR's or taxing the shit out of 2nd homes would be a 1 time, short term relief, but it's not going to effect the construction industry costs for new construction.
The market isn't free, there's a ton of restrictions and policies that benefit large corporations while making it very difficult for new companies to make any headway against their competition
Remove those restrictions and things get shittier, not more competitive. The only thing that makes smaller companies competitive is either 1, they corner some disruptive market that the big boys are ignoring (this is so rare you likely know all of the big instances of this) or 2, antitrust breaks up the big companies so that a more competitive market emerges.
That's it. Anything else is an edge case of an edge case and not worth bothering with. The top of that list is removing regulations. Regulations are written in blood and acting like they're just red tape in your way is how people die.
You've got it backwards. If it wasn't for the government, regulations and anti monopoly laws there wouldn't be any new companies, it'd just be one major Corp for each sector.
They still don't even go far enough tbh.
That's what free market means
What else but regulations prevents the creation of surplus housing? That poverty as a feature post, why are those houses not been built?
It only takes a few people to solve the housing market in a liberal market by organizing the construction. With regulations, it takes a majority to make a change. The same majority who could rise taxes and build affordable housing with tax money right now.
There is land, unemployed people who can do the construction and people with income who seek housing and will pay for it. Who is preventing the construction?
Communists irl
The only problem communism has solved so far is obesity.
Why dont you tell us you have a paper thin understanding of communism without telling us you have a paper thin understanding of communism...
I think it's interesting that people always just jump to "communism is when no food," like there have been no famines or starvation under capitalism.
Especially when you can note that those problems with food production were basically immediately solved with the extremely deserved death of Lysenkoism.
Have you actually read about it from various sources that you cross referenced or are you taking this from your libertarian society that instilled its beliefs on you through culture?
People in Russia and China were much hungrier and unequal before the communist revolution, look it up. Unless you're talking about Cuba, which the US tried desperately to overturn and starve.
Let me interest you in this wonderful thing called 🪩 Anarchism 🪩
That's just actual libertarianism, you can't trick me, punk.
"Anything I don't agree with is communism!"
So central banks are printing money left and right, controlling the market winners, controlling interest rates, short and long ends of the yield curve, inflation, and my testicles, and you call it a "free" market?
Genuine question. Are you stupid genetically or did you learn being stupid from your environment like every teenager around here who don't understand shit in the economy?
Let's be honest there are areas that would benefit from less regulation.
(Looking at you housing!)
Creating slums will solve the housing crisis!!!
I can't tell if this is sarcasm. The housing market is suffering due to "real estate investors" just buying out and renting houses that used to be non-rental. Investment is driving up the cost of housing significantly. There's going to be a reckoning as wages are kept down and mortgages keep going up though. Eventually rent to cover mortgages are going to be too high and it's just going to push out the small time real estate investors, and either more companies will move in or there'll be a small drop in pricing.
One reason the condo complex has sane, ish, prices is that rentals are not allowed and if you want to flip one you will be paying both taxes and association dues till its sold.
I'll agree that is A problem, but not the only problem.
- Nimbyism
- Building laws
- licensing laws
- zoning
Those things also add to the exorbitant cost of housing. It's not investors who are causing houses to cost 300 a square foot in my city, it's lack of buildable land, contractor availability, licensing, residential zoning laws. All those things equal cost... some of those things could be fixed with less regulation.
Let's be honest, this is simply not true. Regulation acts in favor of the weaker link, no area benefits from deregulation.
Regulations also helps minor things like keeping food and medicines safe.
Traffic regulations make the entire system of people staying on their own side of a 4 inch paint line work.
Are you kidding me? No area benefits from deregulation?
Regulation in a lot of areas is put in as a protection to businesses already in the space to help alleviate competition. Is Charter/Comcast is out there pushing for deregulation so that small cities and communities can come in and setup their own cheaper broadband services, or are they fighting it tooth and nail?
Does my barber actually need a license to cut hair? Sure you could argue that the barber is technically more hygienic, but that isn't always the case.. it's just another way to make it harder for me to open up a competing barbershop.
