Asperger syndrome and Libertarianism idea

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Some third world countries show it's not the case.

Are you referring to 3rd world dictatorships?

In a way, it is an honest critique if you extrapolate out it's meaning. While dictatorships would not be my choice of examples, the United States and Europe during the Industrial Revolution would be. The problem with taking Libertarianism to it's extreme is that at some point desperate people will do anything for money. This makes it easy to exploit the poor and uneducated, using them to do dangerous jobs with a lack of proper safety precautions and pay. The best examples of these would be the factory towns and share cropping plantations of the 1800's through the 1950's. There is simply too much history to go through here, but they are prime examples of the exploitative side of capitalism when taken to it's extremes. In the end, I do believe in capitalism but I also understand that it is not a system of morality. That is, unless your idea of morality is the pursuit of profit above all else.

I do not believe in an anarcho-capitalist extreme where business is allowed to do whatever it wants in pursuit of profit. History shows that some form of regulation is needed to protect those on the bottom. However, that is not what we have today. What we have now is a system designed to bring about social engineering via regulation and to force leftist ideals upon society via these regulations. Obamacare is a prime example of this, where churches are being forced to fund procedures they are morally opposed to in order to force an atheistic agenda down their throats. Likewise, people like myself are being forced to buy a product or service that we do not wish to purchase. I am currently uninsured and see no reason to change that as it is not economically advantageous for me to do so.

History has far more examples of government exploiting the poor and uneducated than businesses. As an employee, you can leave the company and work for someone else (or yourself). As a citizen of a government, you are controlled at gunpoint (directly or indirectly) and may or may not have the option to leave. Both are organizations that are focused on making money for a select few, but government provides "services" that are not optional.

In a true libertarian society, law would be based on protection of property rights (including oneself as property) and providing justice for violations of those rights.

I don't disagree with you, but think you are having too idealistic a view of property rights. What happens when you have no property? Do you then have no value as a human being and thus exist solely to be exploited? If you have never been poor and associated with poor people on a regular basis then you probably do not have the perspective to see what I mean. I agree that governments are more scary than corporations because they have the power of law behind them but I also fear the power of corporations as well. In fact, I distrust ANY large organization as all of them exploit people for their own advantage. The corporate-state borderline fascism that exists in the US today is particularly frightening as contract law is being ignored to meet the needs of the politicians and labor unions over the needs of the investors and average citizens (see: bank bailouts and automaker bailouts).

I'd also say that historical perspective is wonderful but it is limited in what it can provide. You have to understand the world of today from the perspective of modern history and see what has happened to people due to corporations acting with impunity. While property rights can protect individuals against the loss off drinking water, etc. in theory, it is harder to privately enforce in fact. Going after the one who violated your rights in court has legal costs associated with it. If the other party has very deep pockets then can ruin you even if you win. Thus it becomes a financial matter where you are better served surrendering to their violation of your rights rather than fighting it in court because of the legal costs. Plus, courts are no guarantee of justice. If a corporation poisons your water supply and causes your health irreparable damage do you really care if you win money in court, if you are going to be dead much sooner than you would have been?

In order to find total truth, you need to have a sense of perspective that no one political philosophy can provide. Nothing in the real world is ideal. While I do think that the Libertarians are more correct than the Republicans or Democrats, I don't think that their philosophy is the end all, be all of correctness either. All of them only see a narrow piece of the pie of life while failing to see the bigger picture and dealing with all of the loose ends and details.

Personally, I'm not entirely sold on the pure libertarian perspective, but it has always made more sense to me than the alternatives. I agree that it can appear very idealistic.


Your value as a human being would be based on your productive capability. If you want to acquire property, you work for someone else until you earn enough to acquire some. Alternatively, you take ownership of unclaimed property by actively using it for a productive purpose.

The fact is, a person who produces is worth more than a person who doesn't. A person who produces nothing has no (or negative) value. This is math, not opinion. It's just not "politically correct".

This sounds very judgemental, but only because of how society has transformed economic "value" into a subjective term. Value is not the same as importance. For example, your child may not contribute to society, but that does not make him or her unimportant.


I agree with everything you say here, but I view it a bit differently. I don't distrust; I fully expect any large organization (corporation or government) to exploit anything and everything to pursue objectives that will increase profitability for the shareholders. This includes exploiting people and legal institutions.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to behave unnaturally. Greed is natural. It makes more sense to me to embrace a system than utilizes natural tendencies than it is to try to adapt society to behave in a "better" system.


You're describing the world of a democratic republic, where individual rights are trumped by the majority and government is the tool of the corporation. It seems to me that what we really fear is the government in the hands of the corporation, not the corporation itself.

The libertarian viewpoint is that if you remove the power of the government, the corporation has to compete in a fair market and the consumer decides where to spend his or her dollars. In a fair market, the corporation will bend to the will of the consumer rather than using government to protect itself from the consumer.


I understand the gist of your point, but I have to disagree with it a bit. This is where I see a major difference between the major parties and libertarianism. The republicans (including faux libertarians) and democrats are very issue-centric while libertarians tend to be very individual-centric. I have a very difficult time with the issue-centric approach, which I think connects with your point. Where I differ is that I see libertarianism being about individual freedom (both socially and economically) rather than issues, and I view the individual as being the big picture.

Taken to it's extreme then, what you are saying is that people who are disabled and unable to produce do not deserve to live. I'm sorry but this is not a viewpoint that I can support.

It's not appropriate to infer this from what I said and you know it. I specifically qualified my discussion on value and importance to invalidate this response.

Then how would you deal with such a situation? I am not just talking about a case of someone born into a family capable of supporting them but in the case of someone born into a family without means or where both parents are addicts or otherwise incapable of ever producing much? The problem is not that you qualified the statement but rather that you did not provide an actual answer to the questions it raises. Taken to it's extreme, this is the way such a society would value such an individual and how they would be treated. Thus, it is an ugly little loose end that needs to be tied up in order for more people to be swayed into voting for Libertarian candidates. Otherwise, if you don't deal with issues of this sort, it will continue to be a fringe political philosophy bandied about by theoreticians who do not really believe it will ever be implemented in reality. I mean, it all sounds great in theory but then again so did communism and we all know how that turned out.

Supporting those who can't support themselves isn't an issue for public policy. It's not a matter of whether or not they deserve to live. It's an issue of whether it is right or wrong to force people to produce in order to support them. It's an issue of forcing other people to conform to your value system.

Supporting people who need help is great, but it should be through charity, not through stealing it from other people through the force of government. It's far more effective and doesn't trample on the property rights of others.

I think that you are hung up on the "society" entity. It's really not much more than a social construct used to force individuals to conform to the will of others. Instead of thinking in terms of "what would society do?", think about what individuals would do. We have a very natural instinct to help other people -- look at how effective charity is currently even under the oppression of heavy taxation.

No offense, but you live in la la land. " Charity" is not going to support those with severe disabilities or even moderate disabilities who live in group homes or institutions. If your a libertarian, what do you do? kick them to the curb? Majority of people who we ( in the state of NJ) work with receive SSI and Medicare. They wouldn't survive without it. If you support human rights you support govt intervention in social welfare. Libertarian philsophy is very selfish and is naive.

Not constructive.


Based on what evidence?


No, you can contribute time or money to a charity that assists them. I contribute quite a bit to charity. Do you?


There may not be much of an alternative at the moment, but there could be one based on volunteerism rather than theft. I'm a lot less generous than I would be if I wasn't having a third of my income stolen from me.


This isn't even remotely valid. The only way you can claim any validity to it is to push your view of human rights on the rest of us.

I personally view the retention of the product of labor to be a human right.


No, it's really not, but you're here to attack, not to understand.

Libertarians will always attack taxation as theft. To accept that they're part of a society and could not have the advanced existence we currently enjoy without group effort would be an insult to their ego.

Stating that you live in La La Land may be an attack but it's entirely accurate.

I'm out. There's little chance of correcting what's wrong with the Libertarian mindset and no point in continuing to argue. We'll just keep "stealing" your money and providing you with roads, inspected medicines, foods, police services and the freedom of speech to complain about it.

The problem is a lot of the time "climbing the social ladder" in the corporate world means not only being technically skilled, but also being good at playing the social games and office politics necessary to get to the top and stay there. It seems people on the autism spectrum are at a huge disadvantage in the libertarian free-market jungle. The real world doesn't consist of individuals competing purely on individual merit. It consists of individuals jostling for power in complex social hierarchies.

The thing is that Libertarianism is a spectrum, not a singular set of beliefs. There are more moderate people, like me, who ascribe to many of the good ideas in it but don't take it to the radical extreme. The most radical Libertarians are pretty much indistinguishable from Anarchists and Anarcho-Capitalists, but not everyone thinks that way. Conservative Libertarians see a need for some government and some government services, just at a very minimal level. That is where I am at.

I don't see the need for a gigantic military or a surveillance state, or most social services. However, I do think that roads and bridges and border security as well as basic police services and the like should be the purview of government. I also think that certain things make sense for government to provide because they minimize crime. This would include things like mental health services for the poor that then let them work and keep them from the kind of desperation that drives them to crime and expensive prisons. I don't think the government should be providing food, clothing and shelter for the able bodied though. That can be left up to charitable organizations as they are far more efficient in how they utilize money than the government is.

I also believe in a return to a gold standard and an immediate audit of the Federal Reserve. Sound money is the cornerstone of a sound economy and we need to return to it. Likewise, I would like to see a repeal of legal tender laws which force people and businesses to accept dollars in transactions. This way, people could choose how they will transact business and private currencies could replace the government one if the market loses faith in it. It also limits the revenue streams for large banks, especially the Primary Dealers.

Primary Dealers are a select group of banks which the Fed uses to implement monetary policies such as Quantitative Easing. By taking them out of the equation, you limit their ability to buy political influence. As of now though, this group of 21 banks (about half of which are US banks, the rest are foreign banks like HSBC, UBS, RBS, etc.) hold a tremendous amount of power over the economy because of their role in the banking system. Since they receive QE funds first, (the Fed deposits money in their banks), they are free to front run the inflation it causes and buy assets at prices that are certain to rise due to the decrease in value of the dollar once these new funds filter out through the economy. Thus, the big bankers (Jamie Dimon, etc.) make huge bonuses due to their ability to skim value off of the top of the economy. As QE filters down though, it eventually reaches the poor as decreased value for the money they hold. Thus, the purchasing power of the poor and middle classes gets skimmed by the ultra-rich, all thanks to central banking. This is why a gold backed currency is a good thing. Gold is finite and much harder to manipulate than paper (although it is manipulated by the options and futures market and the power the PD banks hold in these markets, but there is too much to get into about that here).

I have another bone to pick here.

So many of the people here are making invalid assumptions about uncaring Aspies and libertarians.

Talk about hogwash --- this is it.

First off -- Aspie lack of empathy is not the same as lack of sympathy. The form of empathy Aspies lack is the ability to guess what those around them are about to do. It is this lack that leads us into problems in social interactions with NTs. and on a side note -- NTs do not have this type of empathy with us - we baffle them and surprise as much as they do us!

There is absolutely no evidence that Aspies have any lack of empathy in the form of caring for or having concern for those around them. All evidence I have suggests that Aspies as a rule often have a extra shot of this type of empathy. My son is described by his teachers as one of their most caring and helpful students. I have a nice that is now dating a young man with Asperger's and describes him as honest, caring and kind - unlike all those self-centered jerks she went through before him (her words). I have heard the words caring and kind and helpful to describe others with Asperger's and autism.

Likewise - libertarians both little l and big L that I have known (and yes, I have known many) seem to be at least as involved in charitable acts as the rest of society (usually more involved at least for little l's). Libertarians are not opposed to great and wonderful things happening in society - we are opposed to the concept that doing so at the point of a gun is acceptable.

On the other hand there is ample evidence that for more than 10,000 years governments have proven their often total lack of sensitivity to those they have dominion over.

P.S. What originally drew me to libertarian philosophy is the strong use of logic and adherence to a set of core principles. It had nothing to do with my selfishness - as in reality I like many of my brethren am far more caring and generous than the average NT (person if you must).