What drives people towards libertarianism?

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You are ungrateful to the society that allows you to prosper. You do not "produce" your own wealth alone. That attitude is shear narcissism. You are surrounded with people that have money that are willing to trade things with you so you can prosper.


And how did he survive if he had no money to pay for treatment? If he indeed want bankrupt someone else must have paid for the portion he couldn't pay. Other people's insurance premiums (like mine) have to go up in order to cover the risk of free-loaders like your cousin. Remember, there is no free lunch. The ultimate libertarian solution is to abolish personal bankruptcy law and bring back debtor's prisons for free-loaders like your cousin.




More likely you just don't realize what government services you do take advantage of indirectly.


And if you took the time to understand basic economics you would know that there must also be consumers to support producers. Compared to the average American I'm not a big consumer. If everyone had my habits retailers wouldn't be able to make money the way they do. There are two sides to every story.

I think your idea that poor people "want to consume" by taking things from others is bigoted. Most poor people just want to survive and have dignity without being completely miserable.


If that was true I would support you. The problem is the idea that everyone can 100% support themselves if they choose to in a world of limited resources is an ignorant view of reality. I say it's bigoted because it's self-serving. You want to believe you "did it all yourself" because it makes you feel better. This is not critical examination.


And this is why you will be accused of being anti-social. Human beings are social animals. We are conditioned to work together. The problem is natural social empathy that drives voluntary cooperation only extends to a group of 150 or so individuals. Because society has grown far too complex for groups of that size to be self-sustaining, political institutions and bureaucracies must be put in place to keep society prosperous and healthy. There's simply no way you'll ever appreciate this unless you visit some deeply impoverished third world country that has no political institutions or bureaucracies and personally witness how people live.


Your ideology of "every man for himself" will never work for the exact same reason. You construct a straw-man attack of my views but you clearly do not understand human nature yourself. In pre-industrial times when populations of people had to compete for scarce resources they banded together in groups. If such groups had to be larger than 150 individuals or so, they came up with political systems to come up with a balance between personal autonomy and group cohesion. Thus government was born. Without government to manage resources groups would tend to fight and kill each other, or at least attempt to raid the others resources. Even the most selfish individuals would prefer to live with a government rather than without because government allows more peace and prosperity for everyone. If you choose to ignore groups without ownership of property as a tool for their own means of survival, you risk being a target of crime and violence. People will not unconditionally respect property rights when it comes down to life or death. It's just that people who live in the prosperous west are so distanced from this reality of human nature that they seem to forget about it. I favor taxes and modest redistribution because I don't want to live in a crazy violent society where people are literally fighting for survival on the street.

Who are the producers? Do you believe it is the workers building and using the factories? Or the rulers thousands of miles away.

Most of the Elite of the Maga Corps supported by government subsidies are Rent Collectors, not Creators.

The brains of the system are in the middle level. The engineers, the technicians, the applied scientists, the mathematicians who model the world for their less than worthy bosses.

ruveyn

That's... very insightful, actually.

But the elite are the owners. The engineers, technicians, and scientists are hired help. You've obviously fallen victim to fallacious "Just Word Fallacy" reasoning. The robber barons may get too much help from government cronies today, but that is by no means the root of the problem. There is no such thing as natural meritocracy in capitalism. It's complete and utter BS, just like any other religion. Belief in "just free markets" is a uniquely American religion that has only risen in popularity in the late 20th century. It's risen in popularity because the generations that lived through the last Great Depression as adults have mostly died off and more recent generations became so prosperous that they completely forgot history.

I agree. But there is even less meritocracy in communism and socialism. So pick the least worst of the alternatives.

ruveyn

Elites cause problems regardless of how hard they worked. I'm sure Hitler worked hard to become ruler, but did that justify his authority? I think we should worry more about centralized authority rather than meritocracy. Libertarianism does not spread out authority evenly.

THe libertarians favor following the constitution as written, not as -interpreted- by activist judges in the Federal judiciary. If the Constitution does not spread power adequately (it specify three branches of government any two of which can check the other one) If this is not good enough then we need a new constitution. What would you propose?

ruveyn

Hello? Moderators participating in this thread? I'm officially done with unprovoked attacks from Marshall and will be reporting *every* *single* *one* until something is done about it. Thank you.

Hrm. While he called me a selfish prick in the same statement, I prefer he have the freedom to speak how he feels in PPR. It's interesting to see how people communicate their perspective, even if it is a bit of a bloodbath at times.

That.

What draws people to libertarianism is the idea that government should be very limited and anything that doesn't harm anyone else unless it is necessary should be legal. They believe that you can get and do anything you like as long as it doesn't take away from or harms others. This means low taxes, legalizing soft drugs like marijuana, less or lack of social programs and no jail time for victim less crime.

I personally lean center-right. I believe that social programs should exist as should measures to discourage their misuse (for example, collecting welfare because you simply do not want a job even if you can keep one).

It's been a long time since I've followed up with this thread, but here's my reaction:

@ruveyn: Get over your pipe dream. You got help from the government some way or another throughout your life. It's a shame I forgot that for a few years where I thought the private market could do almost anything.

@marshall: Compared to the other thread that I'm running this on (NationStates), what you did wasn't even close to flaming or anything that mods would intervene on.

I wonder why WP is so right-wing...if it was NationStates everybody would have just had a circle-jerk about how laughable, unrealistic, and immoral to the poor that libertarianism is.

So, because an idea you disagree with wasn't laughed off the forum you think this place is right wing? Don't claim that intellectual high ground just yet...

I guess anything seems right-wing after I've been around far-left people for a long time. I guess though that WP reflects the US a bit more, and NationStates is very European (and the Americans that play it are worse, because they have to rant about how "disgustingly conservative" the States is).

To be honest, I dislike their circle jerking because it serves no purpose other than piss off people and doesn't convince anyone that libertarianism is undesirable, but it doesn't mean that I like libertarianism or that I wasn't surprised at the level of support for libertarianism I get around here.

Dude, reality check: WP is fairly left wing. There are like 3 conservatives on here and a handful of libertarians, decidedly the minority of the board. Libertarianism is a bit more prevalent among Aspies than the general public because we tend to like logical systems that make sense, but it's hardly a majority opinion.