The Non-Libertarian FAQ (aka Why I Hate Your Freedom)

by czr80 • 13 years ago

22 19 13 years ago

"0.5: Why write a Non-Libertarian FAQ? Isn't statism a bigger problem than libertarianism?

Yes. But you never run into Stalinists at parties. At least not serious Stalinists over the age of twenty-five, and not the interesting type of parties. If I did, I guess I'd try to convince them not to be so statist, but the issue's never come up."

Well I guess the author lives in a wrong country. I've ran into many, if not Stalinists, then certainly Marxists and Leninists in my life.

inglesp• 13 years ago

Might I ask where you're from and what kind of parties you go to?

BerislavLopac3• 13 years ago

I'm for Europe, specifically Croatia -- and if you go to any party catering for students and generally educated people under 35 you'll find a whole palette of leftist ideas, sometimes expressed quite aggressively.

siddboots• 13 years ago

That's just anecdotal as the author's statement. Your experience doesn't make his any less plausible.

Besides, his core argument is more compelling than just "I've never encountered a socialist." See the next paragraph:

"...I see very few attempts to provide a complete critique of libertarian philosophy. There are a bunch of ad hoc critiques of specific positions: people arguing for socialist health care, people in favor of gun control. But one of the things that draws people to libertarianism is that it is a unified, harmonious system."

BerislavLopac3• 13 years ago

I know -- my point was not to refute him or make his experience seem implausible. I was just making a witty remark. ;-)

goshakkk5• 13 years ago

Another example of externalities would be a widget factory that spews carcinogenic chemicals into the air. When I trade with the widget factory I'm benefitting - I get widgets - and they're benefitting - they get money. But the people who breathe in the carcinogenic chemicals weren't consulted in the trade.

Well, actually, polluting the air is not a problem by itself, of course... but there is another perspective: if you're spewing chemicals into the air, you are forcedly taking the rights in lungs, fields, and other property of people living nearby.

That's an act of aggression, and therefore libertarianism is against it. But the article makes it sound as if "voluntary exchange" is all libertarianism is about, ignoring nonaggression principle.

dethtron5000• 13 years ago

The issue is not whether or not libertarianism would be "against" an externality like that, it's that libertarianism (at least in the author's eyes) doesn't provide workable solutions for externalities like pollution and other tragedy of the commons-like situations.

boon• 13 years ago

The problem is, neither does the state.

goshakkk5• 13 years ago

It doesn't?

As it's an act of aggression, the people suffering may well demand the factory compensates them for the damage.

But actually, knowing that it will be held liable, the factory will spend more money on researching how to minimize pollution and will generally be placed in places where it does no damage to anyone.

It's all about aggression, really. The factory takes someone's rights unlawfully, it compensates for that. (And knowing it has to compensate, it'll avoid damaging in the first place.)

On contrary, a utilitarian government may decide that having some factory working is beneficial to the whole society so it's in "public interest" to let it infringe with people's rights to their property. So it says, "okay, it's bad; but it's in the public interest! we are going to allow this factory to work and it doesn't have to compensate you anything!"

Libertarianism says that even if having this factory running brings more "good" than "bad", it's still bad, because it aggresses against people's property. Property rights are above any "public good". Period.

(Oh, but if a group of armed criminals has control over some area of land, then it's probably okay to place mysterious "public good" above anything else.)

foolrush• 13 years ago

“That's an act of agression […]”

The issue with this logic is that it treads into Foucault's privileged language.

As a perfect example, fourty to fifty years ago, smoking was not considered in the same culturally maligned status.

If we consider the cultural and sociological prerequisite to evaluate meaning, we inevitably must draw closer to cultural and societal benefits, roles, needs, and other group dynamics.

lotsofcows• 13 years ago

Given that there's only a very occasional link to any sort of supporting evidence this should not be labeled a FAQ. It's more of a manifesto.

rtpg2• 13 years ago

most of this is just a discussion in the abstract. I'm not aware of what citations he would need? Maybe cite the dictionary for definitions?

It seems very much like more of a FQA than a FAQ though.

essrinn• 13 years ago

The author constructs a ridiculous false dichotomy of tallists vs shortists as a comparison for libertarianism vs statism to say that you cannot equate non-libertarian views with statist views. However, he immediately follows this by stating that some American Libertarians believe government can do no right and private industry can do no wrong.

The author is confusing the central tenet of libertarianism with a false dichotomy of the author's own construction between government and private enterprise. The primary goal of libertarianism is individual liberty. Each person should be able to live their life as he or she chooses without having force used against their person to coerce them to do things they otherwise would not do.

To interpret some American Libertarians views as 'all government is bad and all private industry is good' shows an incredible amount of naiveté. The author is inferring a general principle from specific arguments having missed the primary point. The reason you see so many specific arguments against government and for private industry in the modern day USA is not because anyone believes that government is inherently wrong but rather because what the government provides must necessarily be provided by the use of force. The government's chief source of income is taxation which is the application of force to private citizens to extract money.

Most libertarians support the government providing a few limited key services such as national defense and operating a police force. Where you see libertarians start balking at government services is when they reach out beyond the scope of protecting an individual from the use of force by another. In so expanding its scope, the government becomes that which it was created to defend against.

goshakkk5• 13 years ago

Most libertarians support the government providing a few limited key services such as national defense and operating a police force. Where you see libertarians start balking at government services is when they reach out beyond the scope of protecting an individual from the use of force by another. In so expanding its scope, the government becomes that which it was created to defend against.

But its "key" services would be still run on forcedly stolen money, right? Because everyone "needs" police protection (and it surely can't be provided via free market), there still will be armed criminals who take the money from people in order to "provide" their "services". And as they have sovereign control over some area of land, you won't be able to opt out by any mean other than moving out to a different country.

Minarchism is better than the current systems in the same way small theft is better than murder, but it's still not ideal.

("National defense", by the way, is a myth. There would be no need of one if there are no governments.)

glenra• 13 years ago

everyone "needs" police protection (and it surely can't be provided via free market)

Police protection certainly can be provided privately via the free market - and it often is even today, in the sense that there are more private security guards than public police officers in the US - but we usually call people who advocate entirely private generation and enforcement of law anarcho-capitalist rather than libertarian.

Economist David Friedman is one of the best thinkers on this subject; he bases his views on history and the economics of law - this chapter of his book Machinery of Freedom is a good starting point on the theoretical case:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freed...

(I also recommend the book _The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without The State_ by Bruce L. Benson: http://www.amazon.com/The-Enterprise-Law-Justice-Without/dp/... )

The Non-Libertarian FAQ (aka Why I Hate Your Freedom)

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