Libertarianism is it worth it? - I think its not

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Lolbertarianism describes the organization pretty aptly. The ideals are sound but in practice there's a lot of workarounds like having the government outsource censorship to private entities.

Plus the worldview can't handle cases of people hoarding power or malicious foreign entities.

Finally, libertarianism is a magnet to sex pests who want to use the movement to make their perversions legal.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

In this thread: People who have no coherent and correct idea what libertarianism is.
That said, the Libertarian Party of the USA is a farce, and libertarians who are minarchists (or monarchists) are retarded and failed to understand libertarianism

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Libertarianism is a religious delusion on the level of communism. It's never been tried because it can never work without making a hellish dystopia. Libertarianism is based on a naive view of human nature, an incomplete view of economics, and a totally flawed understanding of the state. Libertarians believe that government regulations are what made capitalism bad. They're partially right, but that's because the corporations themselves wanted it! Fact of the matter is that a truly free market on the large scale libertarians desire will inevitably result in the rebirth of state-like structures because successful capitalists and their businesses will desire ways to solidify and increase their power against vagueries and uncertainties that characterize society. Expecting them or people to think differently is the same flaw communists make when they assume they can change human nature.

Some libertarians like Hoppe or Moldbug's Neo-Cameralism correctly ditch the idea of libertarianism creating some inherent good for everyone. But their ideal societies would inevitably end up as the same eating bugs and microchips in the brain that the WEF and Bilderbergs want, albeit via the end result of a truly free market rather than through communism. Libertarianism is incompatible with humanity and human culture. It inevitably results in the commodification and destruction of culture, abolition of race, and reduction of nations into economic units to be moved about.

Libertarianism only works for two groups--perverts and billionaires. It's core mistake is believing capitalism and the free market is an inherent good rather than an equivalent to a force of nature. Rain is necessary for a society, but too much rain or rain on the wrong day is bad. Same goes with capitalism. Mussolini pointed this out a century ago when he noted that decadent "supercapitalism" was the end phase of capitalism, one distinct from the heroic capitalism that built nations.

I believe in the next 20-30 years we'll probably see more Libertarian leaders and we'll see what does and doesn't work long term. Especially if Milei's success is anything to go off of.

Milei's success is because it doesn't take much to do better than decades of failed communists or corrupt morons compromising with communists. Taking a wrecking ball to communist institutions is a guaranteed way to fix things. But in truth, selling your nation to the highest bidder and worshipping Israel and Jews is not exactly a viable political philosophy long-term.

In this thread: People who have no coherent and correct idea what libertarianism is.
That said, the Libertarian Party of the USA is a farce, and libertarians who are minarchists (or monarchists) are retarded and failed to understand libertarianism

Okay, then what is it? Tell us more of Libertarian Land, the totally real world where free markets can totally work and not just reinvent the state by another name.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Okay, then what is it?

Since you've made up your mind already with a completely wrong conception, I'm writing this mostly for the benefit of other readers

At its very core, libertarianism is a legal/ethical theory (read: "theory" not in the sense of "a game theory!", but "an explanation of how this real thing works")
Deriving from the basic facts of reality (scarce resources), human nature (free will, agency), and peaceful coexistence (conflict avoidance), the libertarian solution to the problem of social order (the possibility of conflict among humans) is a particular set of property assignment.
As in, the ultimate goal and objective is conflict avoidance and resolution. The libertarian answer to this eternal problem is the libertarian concept of property rights.
Namely, private property rights (exclusive right to control a physical good x), self-ownership, ownership of produced goods, homesteading/initial appropriation, and the only legitimate transfer of property titles is the one that is voluntary. Rules by which the owner of every thing can be determined, ownership is assigned and transferred, and disputes are resolved.

That's essentially libertarianism. At least in a nutshell. If you argue against anything else but this, then you've got it wrong.

The "magic" is what happens when these, as I like to call them, ground rules are applied consistently and without exception.
For instance, in no particular order:

• Because the state, as a monopoly on the use of force and taxation, necessarily violates these ground rules, a consistent libertarian must necessarily be an anarchist. Do note that it is possible to be a pessimistic anarchist, i.e. "I reject aggressive violence and therefore also the aggressive state, but I doubt that I will live to witness a completely free society", but any libertarian who is not an anarchist must posit that either the state does not commit aggression or that aggression is justified. Ergo, every libertarian who advocates for a state is a fucking retard and I'll happily join you in talking shit about them.
• "Public property" is not legitimate because it naturally causes conflict instead of helping to avoid it.
• An application of these ground rules makes it possible for every single conflict since the dawn of mankind to be avoided.
• With aggression being equivalent to an invasion of real property borders, there is no such thing as a property right to non-scarce goods - because such a thing creates artificial scarcity and causes conflict instead of helping to avoid it. This means that there is no such thing as a right to reputation, "intellectual property", "value", or other intangible goods and abstract concepts.

What is particularly baffling in people who hate libertarians is that they themselves obey the ground rules of libertarianism at least 99% of the time in everything they do.

 

[regalterry]

What lolbergs always fail to understand is that power abhors a vacuum, so the moment they create one, something else will fill it, and thus they always get fucked over, but lack the ability to understand why.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

What lolbergs always fail to understand is that power abhors a vacuum, so the moment they create one, something else will fill it, and thus they always get fucked over, but lack the ability to understand why.

Power is literally an abstract concept and thus cannot "abhor" anything
Statists come out with such non-phrases and then wonder why they're getting exploited and all of their societies and ways to reign in government overreach (constitutions, democracy, parliaments) always end in communism
The only thing that can abhor a power vacuum is human beings, and they tend to be vulnerable to firearms and siege tactics

 

[King George III]

Whatever Libertarianism was, it is no longer, as the movement has been hijacked by pedophiles and hedonists.

 

[regalterry]

Power is literally an abstract concept and thus cannot "abhor" anything

Oh, I see what the issue is, you're autistic and have difficulty parsing meaning behind human language.

Of course the sentence isn't about "power" as an entity with agency, you sperging retard, it's a constatation that humans crave power and will grasp for it if there is no one to stop them.

and they tend to be vulnerable to firearms and siege tactics

Yeah, you clowns always lose for a reason, just like your inbred leftist cousins, the anarchists.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The "magic" is what happens when these, as I like to call them, ground rules are applied consistently and without exception.
For instance, in no particular order:

Thank you for admitting you're thinking of a utopia rather than an actual political philosophy. Remember, communism works too when its rules are applied consistently and without exception. Ideologies like libertarianism, communism, and democracy cannot work because there has not been a single society ever that functions like that. Everybody wants to bend the rules, and some people are a little better at it than others.

Power is literally an abstract concept and thus cannot "abhor" anything
Statists come out with such non-phrases and then wonder why they're getting exploited and all of their societies and ways to reign in government overreach (constitutions, democracy, parliaments) always end in communism
The only thing that can abhor a power vacuum is human beings, and they tend to be vulnerable to firearms and siege tactics

Power is wielded by human beings. That's why any attempt to minimize or abolish the state results in creation of new state institutions. Look at Somalia. The government ceased to exist, and Somalis assembled a collection of new states that were a mix of local warlords, traditional chiefs and judges, and hardcore Islamic terrorists. You can see historical examples of the same phenomena in late 13th century onward Germany or 11th-17th century Japan. When the state has collapsed, it gets replaced by either another state or institutions cobbled together into something approximating a state (like in Somalia that's traditional tribal chiefs and judges and Islamic clergy). The only exception is when civilization itself is so weakly rooted that people go back to relatively anarchic tribes, like the transition from the mound building Indians with their priest-chiefs that the Spanish met to the relatively free Indians the English met 150 years later.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Thank you for admitting you're thinking of a utopia rather than an actual political philosophy. Remember, communism works too when its rules are applied consistently and without exception.

Are you fucking retarded?
Communism does not work in theory. It is not "good in theory, bad in practice", communism can be completely debunked without wasting a single human life putting it to practice. Ludwig von Mises did that in the 1920s, delivering the theoretical proof for why communism can not possibly achieve the goals it proclaims to achieve.

Honestly, it is infuriating and annoying that the "people" who criticize libertarianism get it so fucking wrong, yet they act so confidently and with such smugness as if they had it figured out

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Are you fucking retarded?
Communism does not work in theory. It is not "good in theory, bad in practice", communism can be completely debunked without wasting a single human life putting it to practice. Ludwig von Mises did that in the 1920s, delivering the theoretical proof for why communism can not possibly achieve the goals it proclaims to achieve.

If the rules of communism--from each according to his ability, to each according his need--and all that were consistently followed, it would work perfectly. We know this because communism on very small scales like tiny communes of like-minded people holding all property in common actually has worked. Usually said communes failed in the end because people who wanted free shit joined.

Honestly, it is infuriating and annoying that the "people" who criticize libertarianism get it so fucking wrong, yet they act so confidently and with such smugness as if they had it figured out

I defined libertarianism perfectly. Your only counterargument was "that isn't real libertarianism!" and saying how it would work if the rules were perfectly applied. I explained how that's an argument rooted in utopian fantasies that wouldn't happen in the real world.

And while minarchism is really stupid, anarchism of any variety is even more stupid because it always makes a new government. Why would any sane major corporation want a free market instead of a corporate welfare system where they can use regulations they collude with governments to write in order squelch competitors and work within their industry as oligopolies and cartels? If the state didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it. That's what history shows us, over and over, across thousands of years and many diverse cultures.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

If the rules of communism--from each according to his ability, to each according his need--and all that were consistently followed, it would work perfectly.

Nonsense.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, how would anyone be able to make rational decisions? Economic calculation is impossible, calculating costs is not possible.
Even if you manage to create this kind of new human, standing on the shoulders of giants, even if it was possible that they liberate themselves and sacrifice themselves for the collective and work for others, it's not going to work.

The socialist dictator (or communal vote) wants to ensure that his people don't freeze in the winter. So he does some brainstorming and comes up with several alternatives. He's got lots of alternatives, he has free reign over all labor and resources. The first alternative he comes up with is, why don't we get a wood-burning stove in every house? Well, we need to chop trees in the winter, but let's just suspend 1/4 of all laborers from work during the winter to go chop trees. Another alternative, you can put one or more electricity-generating bicycles into every home and then people are bicycling all the time to generate electricity. Then he thinks, alternatively, we could insulate the houses better, then we can use the laborers to that end. Or we could install solar panels on every roof, that takes longer and is more technologically challenging. Or we could get a nuclear power plant constructed and use that to heat the houses.
What alternative is the best one?
Obviously, without prices, it's completely arbitrary. Each alternative has its own costs. One option requires more laborers, others require more wood, others require more uranium etc. They also have different durations, so the people need to freeze for longer until the heat finally comes. That means that every alternative uses resources and laborers that aren't simultaneously available for other projects.
If 3/4 of the people are using their bicycles in the winter to generate electricity and heat houses, they can't simultaneously produce other goods. If he goes with the oven option, only 1/4 of the people are busy chopping trees, but the wood that is being burned can no longer be used for the production of furniture, and the forests are no longer nice areas for relaxation or hiking in the summer. Other costs are caused by the solar option or the nuclear power alternative.
The dictator can make a free choice, everything belongs to him, but for the same reason, because everything belongs to him, there are no prices for labor, for wood, for uranium etc. He cannot monetarily compare the costs, his decision is completely arbitrary. And that means that his action is irresponsible. Because he doesn't know the costs, he is going to decide on other criteria. It could be ideological - that he's against nuclear or against solar - or because he's got some friend who happens to be a manager of a solar panel company, then he will pick that alternative. But he does not know, for instance, if he picks the oven alternative, whether the heat that is being produced is worth more than the consumed wood and labor in the eyes of the people. Is the heat worth more than the labor and the wood and the products that could have been created with them? He can't know that because there are no prices. Wouldn't the people prefer enjoying an untouched forest in the summer or enjoy wooden furniture instead of having heated their homes with wood? He can't know that because there are no prices.
In a market economy, when an entrepreneur sees that his costs of chopping trees won't be covered by the revenue of selling wood, he'd be making a loss, he knows right away to abstain from doing that. But a socialist planner is necessarily blind. And thus the system deteriorates in "calculational chaos" as described by Mises.

 

[Kovachs]

If the rules of communism--from each according to his ability, to each according his need--and all that were consistently followed, it would work perfectly. We know this because communism on very small scales like tiny communes of like-minded people holding all property in common actually has worked. Usually said communes failed in the end because people who wanted free shit joined.

Libertarianism is an ethical theory, and communism, at least according to many Marxists, describes a particular mode of production involving the abolition of the law of value and commodity form, as well as private capital. Ideologically, communism is extremely vague. These are apples and oranges. You're comparing an ethical belief system and theory to a proposed arrangement of economic activity and relations to production.

Also, you are saying the state is likely to exist for various reasons. But that is not really a refutation of libertarianism in and of itself. He pointed out that there is such a thing as pessimistic anarchism or libertarianism. You can believe that the existence of the state is unethical without believing that the state is likely to be abolished.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

The socialist dictator (or communal vote) wants to ensure that his people don't freeze in the winter. So he does some brainstorming and comes up with several alternatives. He's got lots of alternatives, he has free reign over all labor and resources. The first alternative he comes up with is, why don't we get a wood-burning stove in every house? Well, we need to chop trees in the winter, but let's just suspend 1/4 of all laborers from work during the winter to go chop trees. Another alternative, you can put one or more electricity-generating bicycles into every home and then people are bicycling all the time to generate electricity. Then he thinks, alternatively, we could insulate the houses better, then we can use the laborers to that end. Or we could install solar panels on every roof, that takes longer and is more technologically challenging. Or we could get a nuclear power plant constructed and use that to heat the houses.
What alternative is the best one?
Obviously, without prices, it's completely arbitrary. Each alternative has its own costs. One option requires more laborers, others require more wood, others require more uranium etc. They also have different durations, so the people need to freeze for longer until the heat finally comes. That means that every alternative uses resources and laborers that aren't simultaneously available for other projects.
If 3/4 of the people are using their bicycles in the winter to generate electricity and heat houses, they can't simultaneously produce other goods. If he goes with the oven option, only 1/4 of the people are busy chopping trees, but the wood that is being burned can no longer be used for the production of furniture, and the forests are no longer nice areas for relaxation or hiking in the summer. Other costs are caused by the solar option or the nuclear power alternative.
The dictator can make a free choice, everything belongs to him, but for the same reason, because everything belongs to him, there are no prices for labor, for wood, for uranium etc. He cannot monetarily compare the costs, his decision is completely arbitrary. And that means that his action is irresponsible. Because he doesn't know the costs, he is going to decide on other criteria. It could be ideological - that he's against nuclear or against solar - or because he's got some friend who happens to be a manager of a solar panel company, then he will pick that alternative. But he does not know, for instance, if he picks the oven alternative, whether the heat that is being produced is worth more than the consumed wood and labor in the eyes of the people. Is the heat worth more than the labor and the wood and the products that could have been created with them? He can't know that because there are no prices. Wouldn't the people prefer enjoying an untouched forest in the summer or enjoy wooden furniture instead of having heated their homes with wood? He can't know that because there are no prices.
In a market economy, when an entrepreneur sees that his costs of chopping trees won't be covered by the revenue of selling wood, he'd be making a loss, he knows right away to abstain from doing that. But a socialist planner is necessarily blind. And thus the system deteriorates in "calculational chaos" as described by Mises.

The fact opportunity cost exists isn't a refutation of socialism. In "real socialism", whatever option is chosen is good because "the people" (who we are assuming in this case are all diehard ideological communists) are using science. This is scientific socialism, where we are assuming the scientists have as humanly perfect information available because nobody lies, is lazy, is inefficient, etc. If we really extend my argument to its logical conclusion, then with sufficient information available it would be possible to predict and plan every element of the economy because there's a limited number of goods and interactions possible. Therefore large-scale socialism would become no different than the very small scale socialism that I described.

Although I think we're splitting hairs here, because this computational problem is also an issue, even if not as large, for capitalist economies in practice due to irrational economic actors and distortion of prices that large corporations produce. A monopoly or oligopoly will distort prices, that's basic economics, and some will function as natural monopolies like utilities or in fields with huge barriers to entry.

Libertarianism is an ethical theory, and communism, at least according to many Marxists, describes a particular mode of production involving the abolition of the law of value and commodity form, as well as private capital. Ideologically, communism is extremely vague. These are apples and oranges. You're comparing an ethical belief system and theory to a proposed arrangement of economic activity and relations to production.

No, I'm proving that communist economics work on very small scales, and that communist economics fail at larger scales for reasons the OP has mentioned (i.e. the computational problem with planned economies).

Also, you are saying the state is likely to exist for various reasons. But that is not really a refutation of libertarianism in and of itself. He pointed out that there is such a thing as pessimistic anarchism or libertarianism. You can believe that the existence of the state is unethical without believing that the state is likely to be abolished.

It is a refutation of libertarianism if we aren't discussing utopianism. That topic came up because the lolbert in the thread talked about how it would totally work if people behaved in a utopian manner, which I think is a nonsense argument akin to how communism or democracy would totally work if people did the same. Any political system that relies on everyone to all have perfect human nature be functional in order to not be a dystopic hellscape isn't even worth considering. And libertarianism, communism, and every form of anarchism fail on that count. Democracy probably does too but we're living through the part where we find out how bad democracy fails.

Anyone who finds the state unethical I take just as seriously as the voluntary human extinction movement and similar weirdos who whine about how being alive is unethical. You might as well whine that magic isn't real and you can't be an archmage spamming magic missile.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

If you have to ask, it's not worth it for you. Political philosophies are a means to an end.
I would only say Libertarians should at least understand being a libertine is not popular, and any political belief system worth your time should be realistic about coalition building.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

No, I'm proving that communist economics work on very small scales

That's a bit of a silly point, to be fair, because humans don't really live in communities like that, and there are plenty of examples of small scale communist communities failing. A lot of those Christian communes you speak of no longer exist, and only really existed due to strong ideological indoctrination. That's one of the problems with communism in the first place; it doesn't understand how humans typically act or feel.

Although I think we're splitting hairs here, because this computational problem is also an issue

It's really not an issue, to be honest, because it's missing the point when Marxists bring that up. The average person is concerned about the price of eggs, the price of gasoline, and the price of housing. These are things effected by policies which limit inputs like zoning regulations, price controls or bans on fracking. It doesn't make sense to talk about issues economies have largely solved, like price calculation, when there are so many other problems that need to be fixed. Marxists often focus on problems where solutions already exist. Civilization solved the problem of small-scale communities , genetics figured out our nature, and markets solved the problem of resource allocation. We don't need to re-invent the wheel here.

 

[Turquoise]

Liberalism: The dystopia
Primitivism: The pipe dream
Fascism: The practical solution
Communism: Stan Laurel
Libertarianism: Oliver Hardy

 

[Kovachs]

No, I'm proving that communist economics work on very small scales, and that communist economics fail at larger scales for reasons the OP has mentioned (i.e. the computational problem with planned economies).

That has almost nothing to do with my point here, which is that you are comparing a particular mode of production to an ethical theory.

It is a refutation of libertarianism if we aren't discussing utopianism. That topic came up because the lolbert in the thread talked about how it would totally work if people behaved in a utopian manner, which I think is a nonsense argument akin to how communism or democracy would totally work if people did the same. Any political system that relies on everyone to all have perfect human nature be functional in order to not be a dystopic hellscape isn't even worth considering. And libertarianism, communism, and every form of anarchism fail on that count. Democracy probably does too but we're living through the part where we find out how bad democracy fails.

Libertarianism isn't a political system. What he was describing is how various aspects of libertarianism interact with each other to form a cohesive ethical theory for mitigating conflict over scarce resources through property rights. Even if you argue from the standpoint of pragmatism or of practicality, whether it is possible to get rid of the state or not does not change whether libertarian ethical theory is useful in terms of deciding any number of questions. Libertarianism as an ethical theory can imply the rejection of certain societal arrangements and an endorsement of some other, theoretical, imagined societal arrangement, but the likelihood, or lack thereof, of whatever imagined societal arrangement a libertarian chooses to endorse does not discount the possibility of applying that ethical theory to a nonetheless imperfect societal arrangement. I actually think you have a rather utopian way of thinking, where you believe that a theory fails unless it manifests itself as a perfectly instantiated ideal political order. I have to wonder if the person bandying around this term utopianism isn't making utopian demands on the world around them.

Anyone who finds the state unethical I take just as seriously as the voluntary human extinction movement and similar weirdos who whine about how being alive is unethical. You might as well whine that magic isn't real and you can't be an archmage spamming magic missile.

Many people regard abortion and drug use as unethical, but it is extremely unlikely that you will be able to totally eliminate either. Would you consider it ridiculous for people to view abortion and drug use as unethical?

 

[Guns of the Gaytriots]

I'm in it for the flag.



It's the best part.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

It's the best part.

IMO, the "An Appeal To Heaven" flag is much better