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What drives people towards libertarianism?

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RushKing
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15 Dec 2012, 12:10 pm

ruveyn wrote:
RushKing wrote:
From my experience libertarians believe too much equality leads to instability..


You ought to get out more. Equalizing the unequal is in and of itself unjust. It has nothing to do with stability. Only one kind of equality matters: equality under the law. The laws are for all of us, not just for particular classes of people.

ruveyn

Hardcore libertarians only believe in property rights.



androbot2084
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15 Dec 2012, 12:14 pm

Libertarians only believe in the property rights of the rich landlords but they do not believe that the poor have property rights.



RushKing
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15 Dec 2012, 12:18 pm

androbot2084 wrote:
Libertarians only believe in the property rights of the rich landlords but they do not believe that the poor have property rights.

They do believe poor people have property rights, the freedom to rent themselves out to greedy tyrants.



Last edited by RushKing on 15 Dec 2012, 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

androbot2084
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15 Dec 2012, 12:23 pm

Under land reform the capitalists would still have the right to buy a 50 year lease on a poor persons farm land and make a handsome profit. But the capitalists want to forever dispossess the poor of their land which doesn't make any sense because the rich are going to someday die.



marshall
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15 Dec 2012, 12:34 pm

adb wrote:
hfwang18 wrote:
Problem is, there's a pesky little economics concept called "diminishing marginal utility of money". That's the justification for progressive tax rates- the rich are less efficient with their consumption, so to boost consumption and therefore the overall economy, it is redistributed to those who would have to spend all of it. Has worked quite well.

It frustrates me that we as a society have come to define our economy by consumption rather than production.

It is a fact that in modern society consumption is the limiting factor on private sector employment. Business can't hire if there is nobody to buy what they produce. I don't like that our society is based on consumption but that is a mathematical reality of capitalism. We are so efficient that only a small number of people are needed to produce enough for everyone to survive comfortably. Secondary markets of more frivolous luxuries are needed to circulate wealth more broadly. I don't understand how you cannot understand that business will not succeed without consumption. Business cannot make money if people aren't able or willing to buy what they produce. While frugality is good for the individual it is bad for the economy as a whole. This is not morality. It's math and logic.

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That said, the utility of what I produce and earn is none of your damn business outside of what you are willing to offer for exchange. Why do you feel it's your right to interfere with what I do unless I'm doing something to hurt you?

People have such double standards when it comes to liberty. Stay out of my bedroom, but I want in your wallet. Don't touch my gun rights, but I want to control who you marry. Again, why do you feel it's your right to interfere with what I do if I'm not doing anything to hurt you?

Because the economy and society simply do not function well in your alternative universe. You're seeing things from a very narrow solipsistic perspective. If you want to be left alone maybe you should forgo modern society completely and learn how to grow your own food and survive off the land. Maybe that will give you better appreciation for everything you take for granted.



marshall
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15 Dec 2012, 12:44 pm

GGPViper wrote:
The interpersonal comparison of utility is a non-scientific concept, and it is thus not a part of economics.

Then economics as a whole must be unscientific because the distribution of interpersonal utility is certainly relevant for the determination of demand in a society without a perfectly uniform income distribution. Though you can't measure interpersonal utility directly, you can see it's effects by looking at patterns of consumption as a function of individual income.



marshall
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15 Dec 2012, 12:58 pm

ruveyn wrote:
RushKing wrote:
From my experience libertarians believe too much equality leads to instability..


You ought to get out more. Equalizing the unequal is in and of itself unjust. It has nothing to do with stability. Only one kind of equality matters: equality under the law. The laws are for all of us, not just for particular classes of people.

ruveyn


It seems that contrary to popular assertion, extreme libertarian beliefs are moralistic rather than pragmatic. Only your morals are like those of an emotionally underdeveloped child. It is wrong that anyone would ever have the audacity to make you share your toys at any time and doing so will cause an unsightly banshee-screaming tantrum. There's a good reason evolution didn't select for this mindset in all but a small minority. We'd all be living in caves and clubbing our neighbors over the head.



hfwang18
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15 Dec 2012, 1:30 pm

adb wrote:
hfwang18 wrote:
Problem is, there's a pesky little economics concept called "diminishing marginal utility of money". That's the justification for progressive tax rates- the rich are less efficient with their consumption, so to boost consumption and therefore the overall economy, it is redistributed to those who would have to spend all of it. Has worked quite well.

It frustrates me that we as a society have come to define our economy by consumption rather than production.

That said, the utility of what I produce and earn is none of your damn business outside of what you are willing to offer for exchange. Why do you feel it's your right to interfere with what I do unless I'm doing something to hurt you?

People have such double standards when it comes to liberty. Stay out of my bedroom, but I want in your wallet. Don't touch my gun rights, but I want to control who you marry. Again, why do you feel it's your right to interfere with what I do if I'm not doing anything to hurt you?


The issue is, no rights are absolute. The concept of rights wouldn't even exist without at least a minimal government to recognize them. And throughout history...anarchism has not worked, and neither has communism nor libertarianism. Also, by not giving a certain percentage of your income, you ARE hurting people by denying them funding for government services- it's the concept of positive liberty as opposed to negative liberty.

And the reason why liberals want in your wallet is because there is absolutely no equality of opportunity unless you're at some minimum economically. Don't tell me that a kid born destitute has the same life chances as the kids of Bill Gates in this country right now.

There's no more ideology in me really...I don't like what some liberals are saying either, but they have a point in saying that big government is not necessarily bad.

The thing is, the smaller the government, the smaller the amount of services they could provide, but also less power they have to oppress. It's a double edged sword, but in our modern society, the government needs to provide a lot of services- even Adam Smith said so. No government is worse than big government, and the only thing really is to hope our government is benevolent and not oppressing people.



RushKing
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15 Dec 2012, 1:46 pm

hfwang18 wrote:
throughout history...anarchism has not worked

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPl_Y3Qdb7Y[/youtube]
:P
Keep in mind the word "libertarian" was used to describe anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists, mutualists etc. Before the word got hijacked by classical liberals.



ruveyn
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15 Dec 2012, 1:58 pm

marshall wrote:

It seems that contrary to popular assertion, extreme libertarian beliefs are moralistic rather than pragmatic. Only your morals are like those of an emotionally underdeveloped child. It is wrong that anyone would ever have the audacity to make you share your toys at any time and doing so will cause an unsightly banshee-screaming tantrum. There's a good reason evolution didn't select for this mindset in all but a small minority. We'd all be living in caves and clubbing our neighbors over the head.


Voluntary association (what you would call co-operation) is the heart of the libertarian view. Forced association (using guns, whips, chains, cattle prods and the like) is at the heart of government. Governments are a necessary evil because some of us do not know how to behaves ourselves. So the question is: how much government and what is regulated by government. A libertarian answer: as -little- government as is required to keep peace and order in the society. It isn't anarchy. It is minarchy. Minimal necessary government and not a bit more than that.

The Statists want to see society thoroughly regulated and controlled by government with all major initiative originating with the government. That means us grunts exist primarily to fund the government which knows better than any of us what is good for us.

ruveyn



marshall
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15 Dec 2012, 2:10 pm

ruveyn wrote:
marshall wrote:

It seems that contrary to popular assertion, extreme libertarian beliefs are moralistic rather than pragmatic. Only your morals are like those of an emotionally underdeveloped child. It is wrong that anyone would ever have the audacity to make you share your toys at any time and doing so will cause an unsightly banshee-screaming tantrum. There's a good reason evolution didn't select for this mindset in all but a small minority. We'd all be living in caves and clubbing our neighbors over the head.


Voluntary association (what you would call co-operation) is the heart of the libertarian view. Forced association (using guns, whips, chains, cattle prods and the like) is at the heart of government. Governments are a necessary evil because some of us do not know how to behaves ourselves. So the question is: how much government and what is regulated by government. A libertarian answer: as -little- government as is required to keep peace and order in the society. It isn't anarchy. It is minarchy. Minimal necessary government and not a bit more than that.

The Statists want to see society thoroughly regulated and controlled by government with all major initiative originating with the government. That means us grunts exist primarily to fund the government which knows better than any of us what is good for us.

ruveyn


Blah blah blah. I already know your silly opinion. You don't need to keep repeating yourself.

The issue is voluntary social pressures don't operate well beyond a group of around 150 individuals. Unless we want to revert to a hunter gather society there has to be some level of compulsory cooperation to make for a prosperous society.



ruveyn
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15 Dec 2012, 2:33 pm

marshall wrote:

The issue is voluntary social pressures don't operate well beyond a group of around 150 individuals. Unless we want to revert to a hunter gather society there has to be some level of compulsory cooperation to make for a prosperous society.


That is why we have laws. Even so a lawful government does not have to be the main driver of a free society. All it has to do is keep the peace. Economic initiative should originate with the owners of capital, not the government. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that if government were to ordain when we should sow and when we should reap, we all would soon want for bread.

ruveyn



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15 Dec 2012, 5:39 pm

marshall wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
marshall wrote:

It seems that contrary to popular assertion, extreme libertarian beliefs are moralistic rather than pragmatic. Only your morals are like those of an emotionally underdeveloped child. It is wrong that anyone would ever have the audacity to make you share your toys at any time and doing so will cause an unsightly banshee-screaming tantrum. There's a good reason evolution didn't select for this mindset in all but a small minority. We'd all be living in caves and clubbing our neighbors over the head.


Voluntary association (what you would call co-operation) is the heart of the libertarian view. Forced association (using guns, whips, chains, cattle prods and the like) is at the heart of government. Governments are a necessary evil because some of us do not know how to behaves ourselves. So the question is: how much government and what is regulated by government. A libertarian answer: as -little- government as is required to keep peace and order in the society. It isn't anarchy. It is minarchy. Minimal necessary government and not a bit more than that.

The Statists want to see society thoroughly regulated and controlled by government with all major initiative originating with the government. That means us grunts exist primarily to fund the government which knows better than any of us what is good for us.

ruveyn


Blah blah blah. I already know your silly opinion. You don't need to keep repeating yourself.

The issue is voluntary social pressures don't operate well beyond a group of around 150 individuals. Unless we want to revert to a hunter gather society there has to be some level of compulsory cooperation to make for a prosperous society.


The same argument is why communism fails- you can tell those socialists and communists who hate libertarianism that. I frankly can't stand either libertarianism or communism/socialism nowadays.



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15 Dec 2012, 5:42 pm

hfwang18 wrote:
This is a thread partially made out of my curiosity, and partially out of my intense guilt for my former political views.

I used to be a libertarian- advocated minarchism, small government, free markets, privatized social services, and all that- I wasn't extreme about it but saw it as an ideal. All of that changed over the course of a few months with the help of a liberal AP US History teacher who explained the value of government in the economy, and a near-fatal illness that even Medicaid was loath to cover. What was worse about it? I'm a lower-middle-class immigrant teen. I'm now a moderate leaning left, don't currently have a coherent ideology and have tried to distance myself from that shameful past as much as possible- I couldn't believe how lacking in empathy I was with my politics.

But it leads me to these questions: Why are people driven towards libertarianism, when it sounds so much like anarchism? Is it the concept of rights? Is it the relaxed social views? Is it the frustration from US-style 2-party politics? Is it lack of empathy? Is it the idea of self-determination? Or is it just simple selfishness and greed?


Laziness. It is a reductionist simplistic view.


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15 Dec 2012, 5:49 pm

RushKing wrote:
From my experience libertarians believe too much equality leads to instability.


It's been my experience that a lot of lefty types have a very poor understanding of libertarianism, and I have the Haidt study to back me up.


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15 Dec 2012, 7:04 pm

I can easily see where libertarians are coming from, despite being a liberal. They don't necessarily lack compassion(in fact, libertarians can be very charitable and caring); the idea is that the government taking your money(beyond what's absolutely necessary), telling you what to do with your business, or telling you what to do in your personal life is morally wrong. Beyond morality, they feel that government attempts to level the economic playing field are misguided and will end up harming society as a whole.

And I can understand that viewpoint, although I don't agree with it. Stealing someone's money to give it to a poor person is clearly not ideal(but in my opinion, neither is leaving the needy totally on their own, either). It would be more ideal if taxation-based welfare programs could be totally replaced by donation-based charities, but unfortunately people don't like to give money, so there would be a massive reduction in benefits for the needy. Whether you're okay with this compromise is completely subjective.