Current Events > Libertarianism is flawed.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm genuinely curious how people in a strictly libertarian state will access clean water, deal with their waste, receive emergency medical and fire services, fund roads to bring goods to market, educate their children, grow their food, prosecute crime, etc. I have yet to receive an answer that wasn't predicated on the existence of a larger government

Generally, they prefer to leave the provision of services to the private sector. And this is where perverse incentives creep in. A famous Roman consul amassed his wealth running a private fire department. If your house caught fire, he'd put the fire out... for a price. It quickly evolved into a sophisticated extortion racket that saw him demanding protection money and intentionally torching homes in order to acquire huge tracts of property.

Likewise, a private water utility has no incentive to provide water cheaply. In fact, it maximizes its profit by creating water scarcity. A private waste treatment operator not bound by environmental protection laws has no disincentive to dump waste into the river. And with no checks on fraud and wealth accumulation, a tiny fraction of the population rapidly comes to control all the wealth and services.

And this doesn't even begin to explore the myriad ways libertarian theory fails to deal with the economic perversity of monopolies and shared infrastructure.

I've always found it telling that libertarianism as a viable political philosophy only seems to thrive in rich states. I think that is because most libertarians don't understand quite how many government services they take for granted. They've never had to live in a community ravaged by communicable disease, or had to avoid packs of feral dogs on their way to work, or attempted to carry a sick child down an unmaintained street at night. So they fail to grasp the public value of the CDC and animal control and street lighting.

Unlike the vast majority of vocal libertarians, I've actually been to places where the state consists almost solely of a military and some prisons. These are called "failed states" and I highly encourage budding libertarians to pay them a visit and see what their utopia looks like up close. They are places where the guy with the biggest gun makes the rules, the population lives in fear, and everybody -- even the very few "rich" people at the top of this pyramid of misery -- is objectively very poor. Generally, these regions' economies are comprised almost entirely of humanitarian aid or remittances from more "liberal" countries.

The point is this: Modern governments weren't dreamt up in a day. The services they now provide largely evolved out of genuine need, usually in response to the failings of earlier "libertarian" policies. In short, we've tried libertarianism before and found it terribly lacking.

The empirical and historical evidence overwhelmingly supports the assertion that (to a point) a more social democratic society is broadly happier, safer, more wealthy, and more just than societies conforming to libertarian principles.
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It's alright
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Everything you said is true!
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It's the curse of good government: Once the government fixes a problem, later on people forget there ever was a problem, and see the government program as superfluous.

I once saw a libertarian who was advocating for the repeal of the EPA. His argument was that the environment wasn't as bad as it used to be, so we didn't need the law anymore.

You read that correctly. His argument was that we don't need the law, because the law works.
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The political theory you're describing falls somewhere between Anarchism and Minarchism, which is on one extreme end of the Libertarian spectrum, with one foot out the door.
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Polycosm posted...

The political theory you're describing falls somewhere between Anarchism and Minarchism, which is on one extreme end of the Libertarian spectrum, with one foot out the door.

This. What youre describing sounds like something you'd hear from an anarcho-capitalist. Not all libertarians believe the fire department should be privatized. Historically, libertarianism as an ideology is more about individual rights, such as the right to free speech and to defend yourself, legalization of all drugs, equal legal rights for everyone without discrimination, etc. And not all libertarians believe taxation is theft (although most Ive seen/heard/interacted with are opposed to income taxes). Most libertarians acknowledge the need to fund the government, given the fact that most libertarians are for a limited government, not a complete abolishment of government.

In what way would limiting the government be an improvement? What specifically do they want in a "limited government?"
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It seems like you are describing some other extreme scenario rather than libertarianism.
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cerealbox760 posted...

I've always found it telling that libertarianism as a viable political philosophy only seems to thrive in rich states. I think that is because most libertarians don't understand quite how many government services they take for granted. They've never had to live in a community ravaged by communicable disease, or had to avoid packs of feral dogs on their way to work, or attempted to carry a sick child down an unmaintained street at night. So they fail to grasp the public value of the CDC and animal control and street lighting.

There are a lot of right-leaning libertarians in South American countries, which aren't known for being particularly wealthy -- think Pinochet, or maybe Hernando de Soto and the land-tilting movement.

There are also those, like Peter Leeson, who argue that 'failed states' like Somalia became better when the government collapsed because anarchy is preferable to a predatory state. I don't know how much I buy into that argument, but the logic there is the same as yours only reversed -- it becomes easier for the state to extract things from you as you have more things, both because the state has a larger resource base to pull from and because each incident of taxation will be less sorely felt by you if it's just a few dollars off your paycheck instead of 3/4ths of your wheat and bean crops

cerealbox760 posted...

The point is this: Modern governments weren't dreamt up in a day. The services they now provide largely evolved out of genuine need, usually in response to the failings of earlier "libertarian" policies. In short, we've tried libertarianism before and found it terribly lacking.

I actually agree with you that the kind of modern nation-states we have obviously provide services that people like, but it's not like the only alternatives are "modern social democracy" or "anarcho-libertarian fantasy." The various forms of monarchy, feudalism, mercantilism, etc we've experienced aren't any more libertarian than our current system
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I'm also not sure how I feel about your conclusion. You could also say something like: "The empirical and historical evidence overwhelmingly supports the assertion that (to a point) a more ethnically and religiously homogeneous society is broadly happier, safer, more wealthy, and more just than societies conforming to cosmpolitan principles."
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DragonGirlYuki posted...

It seems like you are describing some other extreme scenario rather than libertarianism.

he's pretty spot on as to what pure 'Libertarianism' is. it's just that 'Libertarianism' happens to be an extreme scenario where government is little more than the military.
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Any ideology gone to the extreme is bad it seems.
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People don't vote Libertarian hoping for that kind of extreme. The US isn't going to turn into that overnight by electing a few Libertarian candidates. It's more about the Libertarian party being the closest thing to a viable compromise between Democrats and Republicans.

What an awful topic.

Libertarianism is astrology for men
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

he's pretty spot on as to what pure 'Libertarianism' is. it's just that 'Libertarianism' happens to be an extreme scenario where government is little more than the military.

I don't think there is such a thing as 'pure libertarianism' the same way there is pure communism. Libertarianism is more of a reactionary ideology, not one that claims to build a comprehensive worldview the way (at least Marxist variants of) communism does
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Antifar posted...

Communism is astrology for men

fixed that for you

banks stay in business by bribing politicians, if we didn't have rules walmart would stay in business by hiring pinkertons to burn down the competition and rape mom while pop watches
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so not everything can be done voluntarily

thanks for the clarification!
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MorbidFaithless posted...

In what way would limiting the government be an improvement? What specifically do they want in a "limited government?"

Whats your argument for unlimited government? You wanna live like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union where the government is unrestrained?

fenderbender321 posted...

Everything can be done voluntarily. There is no reason we have to force people to do anything.

A restaurant, a retail store, or a bank for example all stay in business by pleasing their customers. They don't stay in business by having shitty products or hurting people. Are they always perfect? No, but they have to be 99% of the time to stay in business.

There is no reason to believe that companies that compete to deliver clean drinking water, roads, sewage, schools, etc would somehow do a worse job of pleasing their customers than a restaurant, a construction company, etc.

Corporate establishments always prioritize profit over safety and the general well-being of the public. Its almost mandatory. When they dont prioritize profit, someone else will. Thats the very nature of capitalism. As great as capitalism is, it needs government intervention to stabilize its flaws and perks.

The public is often blissfully unaware of the damages until its too late. Please refer to the 2008 financial crisis.
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As a libertarian (or more like someone with libertarian sympathies), it is flawed.

It simply isn't something that works in its fully-fledged form. You need some regulations, you need some public services, and you can't just let big businesses control the fate of society with a "shit happens, so be it" attitude.
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Libertarianism is a blanket term and is poorly defined. It's like saying "liberalism" is bad. What is that? John Locke and Antifa clowns are pretty fucking different.

Near anarchy, which you described is certainly flawed. That's why it's not a thing.
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cerealbox760 posted...

fenderbender321 posted...

Everything can be done voluntarily. There is no reason we have to force people to do anything.

A restaurant, a retail store, or a bank for example all stay in business by pleasing their customers. They don't stay in business by having shitty products or hurting people. Are they always perfect? No, but they have to be 99% of the time to stay in business.

There is no reason to believe that companies that compete to deliver clean drinking water, roads, sewage, schools, etc would somehow do a worse job of pleasing their customers than a restaurant, a construction company, etc.

Corporate establishments always prioritize profit over safety and the general well-being of the public. Its almost mandatory. When they dont prioritize profit, someone else will. Thats the very nature of capitalism. As great as capitalism is, it needs government intervention to stabilize its flaws and perks.

The public is often blissfully unaware of the damages until its too late. Please refer to the 2008 financial crisis.

The 2008 financial crisis was literally caused by government intervention.

Under Clinton, the government mandated that banks offer loans to sub-prime applicants as a way to boost minority home ownership.

The sub-prime mortgage fiasco actually disproves your point - there is no profit to be made by loaning money to people who can't repay, so banks refused to do it en-masse until the government forced them to.
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Generally, they prefer to leave the provision of services to the private sector. And this is where perverse incentives creep in. A famous Roman consul amassed his wealth running a private fire department. If your house caught fire, he'd put the fire out... for a price. It quickly evolved into a sophisticated extortion racket that saw him demanding protection money and intentionally torching homes in order to acquire huge tracts of property.

Likewise, a private water utility has no incentive to provide water cheaply. In fact, it maximizes its profit by creating water scarcity. A private waste treatment operator not bound by environmental protection laws has no disincentive to dump waste into the river. And with no checks on fraud and wealth accumulation, a tiny fraction of the population rapidly comes to control all the wealth and services.

1. I'm not seeing a "likewise" correllation.
2. You mean no incentive to price competetively other than basic economics?
3. The latter part about waste treatment is shortsighted. Obviously this negstively affects the water provider, who in turn denies service to the waste plant, who in turn can't operate until they comply.

But there are definitely economic problems, like how you're going to prevent illegal collusion or reduce negative externalities.
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Libertarianism is little more than a reaction to communism.
http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html

darkjedilink posted...

The 2008 financial crisis was literally caused by government intervention.

Under Clinton, the government mandated that banks offer loans to sub-prime applicants as a way to boost minority home ownership.

The sub-prime mortgage fiasco actually disproves your point - there is no profit to be made by loaning money to people who can't repay, so banks refused to do it en-masse until the government forced them to.

it really has more to do with interest rates providing easy credit to banks and the way they securitized and traded debt than the specific asset market which turned toxic
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TomNook20 posted...

John Locke and Antifa clowns are pretty fucking different.

I don't think many, if any, Antifa folks would consider themselves liberal.
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Balrog0 posted...

darkjedilink posted...

The 2008 financial crisis was literally caused by government intervention.

Under Clinton, the government mandated that banks offer loans to sub-prime applicants as a way to boost minority home ownership.

The sub-prime mortgage fiasco actually disproves your point - there is no profit to be made by loaning money to people who can't repay, so banks refused to do it en-masse until the government forced them to.

it really has more to do with interest rates providing easy credit to banks and the way they securitized and traded debt than the specific asset market which turned toxic

That's more an issue of "private gain, public losses" cronyism than anything else.
Democrats set it up by mandating bad debt and providing a means to offload it, Republicans made it worse by baling out the banks that didn't offload enough bad debt.
If anything, that's been the working model of government for the past seventy or eighty years. All that changes is that sometimes the actors swap places. Government creates a disaster, then makes everything worse by trying to fix it.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Libertarianism is little more than a reaction to communism.
http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html

Wasn't the American 1776 revolution about installing a largely free, constitutional government that hinged on libertarian ideals a good example of libertarianism at work? Not a perfect example, like there has never been a perfect system of communism, but close to it?

Seems silly to say that ideals of The Enlightenment era in the 18th century was reactionary to communism at the turn of the 20th century.
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myzz7 posted...

Seems silly to say that ideals of The Enlightenment era in the 18th century was reactionary to communism at the turn of the 20th century.

That's "Classic Liberalism".

Modern libertarianism is largely based around the ideals of people who read Orwell and Rand in high school.

myzz7 posted...

Wasn't the American 1776 revolution about installing a largely free, constitutional government that hinged on libertarian ideals a good example of libertarianism at work? Not a perfect example, like there has never been a perfect system of communism, but close to it?

No, not really at all. Even setting aside the fact that people owned people, antithetical to libertarianism supposedly, the checks on government power below the federal level were not strong at all.
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The first people to describe themselves as libertarians were actual communists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

The first anarchist journal to use the term "libertarian" was Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social and it was published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French anarcho-communist Joseph Djacque.[40] The next recorded use of the term was in Europe, when "libertarian communism" was used at a French regional anarchist Congress at Le Havre (1622 November 1880). January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on "Libertarian or Anarchist Communism". Finally, 1895 saw leading anarchists Sbastien Faure and Louise Michel publish La Libertaire in France."[40] The word stems from the French word libertaire, which was used to evade the French ban on anarchist publications.[41] In this tradition, the term "libertarianism" in "libertarian socialism" is generally used as a synonym for anarchism, which some say is the original meaning of the term; hence "libertarian socialism" is equivalent to "socialist anarchism" to these scholars.[42][43] In the context of the European socialist movement, libertarian has conventionally been used to describe those who opposed state socialism, such as Mikhail Bakunin.

The association of socialism with libertarianism predates that of capitalism, and many anti-authoritarians still decry what they see as a mistaken association of capitalism with libertarianism in the United States.[44] As Noam Chomsky put it, a consistent libertarian "must oppose private ownership of the means of production and wage slavery, which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer."[45]

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cerealbox760 posted...

It quickly evolved into a sophisticated extortion racket

Extortion is illegal. Do you have an example of libertarianism not working under the purview of the law?

cerealbox760 posted...

Likewise, a private water utility has no incentive to provide water cheaply.

Competition.

I don't think pure or extreme libertarianism is viable, but your examples are very poor.

Antifar posted...

The first people to describe themselves as libertarians were actual communists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

The first anarchist journal to use the term "libertarian" was Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social and it was published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French anarcho-communist Joseph Djacque.[40] The next recorded use of the term was in Europe, when "libertarian communism" was used at a French regional anarchist Congress at Le Havre (1622 November 1880). January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on "Libertarian or Anarchist Communism". Finally, 1895 saw leading anarchists Sbastien Faure and Louise Michel publish La Libertaire in France."[40] The word stems from the French word libertaire, which was used to evade the French ban on anarchist publications.[41] In this tradition, the term "libertarianism" in "libertarian socialism" is generally used as a synonym for anarchism, which some say is the original meaning of the term; hence "libertarian socialism" is equivalent to "socialist anarchism" to these scholars.[42][43] In the context of the European socialist movement, libertarian has conventionally been used to describe those who opposed state socialism, such as Mikhail Bakunin.

The association of socialism with libertarianism predates that of capitalism, and many anti-authoritarians still decry what they see as a mistaken association of capitalism with libertarianism in the United States.[44] As Noam Chomsky put it, a consistent libertarian "must oppose private ownership of the means of production and wage slavery, which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer."[45]

and did you know that american conservatism and american liberalism are actually both forms of liberalism ?
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Balrog0 posted...

and did you know that american conservatism and american liberalism are actually both forms of liberalism ?

Yeah basically
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Antifar posted...

As Noam Chomsky put it, a consistent libertarian "must oppose private ownership of the means of production and wage slavery, which is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer."

If I'm understanding this quote correctly, modern libertarianism is the exact opposite of this.

that is the point he is making
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lmao at Antifar finding ways to spin libertarianism into communism

FLUFFYGERM posted...

lmao at Antifar finding ways to spin libertarianism into communism

by using the term as it was originally intended and is still used by many people today?

the lengths he'll go I swear
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Balrog0 posted...

by using the term as it was originally intended and is still used by many people today?

Even the current US Libertarian Party has a small socialist faction. A fringe on the fringe.

I'm not spinning libertarianism into communism; I don't want Ayn Rand fetishists around. I'm simply bringing up some historical context that I think is fun ITT, in light of the claim that "libertarianism is a reaction to communism."
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you know what else is fun? you outright saying you're a communist and then later trying to skirt around that lmao

What exactly is the difference between classical 18th century liberalism and modern libertarian theory?

Because if the differences are small, and heads of the libertarian theory extolled the successes of the American constitution and mode of governance and opposed the enlargement of federal government functions that are not privy to the original intentions of the constitution - I don't understand the confusion TC has about libertarinism and how it would function when we already have strong examples of it by the creation of the USA and other periods of governance like free trade Britain and Hong Kong and Meiji Restoration Japan and so on.
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Antifar posted...

I'm not spinning libertarianism into communism; I don't want Ayn Rand fetishists around. I'm simply bringing up some historical context that I think is fun ITT, in light of the claim that "libertarianism is a reaction to communism."

Hell, it might even work. A deep welfare state full of personal rights (except, you know, property) is pretty much a classic utopia. Doubt it would be sustainable for very long, unless it's almost entirely automated.