Libertarianism: what is it?

Robear wrote:
Maybe we should call people like you Libertarians; however, what then do we call the people I'm talking about?

Since your definition "freedom from physical coercion" excludes government...

Oh, I know what secret word you want to hear ; D

Robear wrote:

Let's be clear - if you're building Libertarian ideals up from the idea that coercion is evil, then you're basing it on anarchism. If you are however willing to submit to coercive force for some things, but not others, then a dislike of coercion is not the primary motivation - that's negotiable in that kind of system. This is why I jump on people who *insist* that they don't like coercion from government, but don't mind police forces. You can't base an argument on an *absolute* dislike of coercion unless you're an anarchist - and if the absolute is not available to you, then when and where coercion is acceptable is a matter for discussion and debate, not one to be discussed with absolutist certainty. You can't be absolutely against coercion in one area, and accepting of it in another, not without admitting that okay, coercion is not the big deal, it's the social policy or rules that actually drive the distinction.

As I understand it the theory is that the police force is a *defense* force--they draw their authority to use force not from being police, but from the right of self-defense of life/liberty/property that the people they protect already have. It's true--it's not an absolute dislike of coercion, but the 'area' of self-defense from coercion itself is a unique one that I don't think opens up when and where coercion is acceptable as a matter for discussion and debate.

My understanding is that Libertarians/Anarchocapitalists don't have problems with police forces so long as they are private entities and compete against other police forces in a free marketplace.

Which, of course, is where the criticism that "Libertarians aren't anti-coercion, they're anti-government and use coercion as the excuse" comes from. If private police forces are okay, that means coercion is okay... as long as it's private. And that suggests that the distinction between "unacceptable" and "acceptable" isn't "coercion" and "no-coercion", it's "government" and "no-government".

That's one of my big irritations with trying to discuss the idea: I've yet to hear one good explanation of that from anyone who espouses that particular ("government is evil, because it uses coercion, and coercion is so evil that it taints everything it comes in contact with no matter how well intentioned!" => "but who defends the property rights you care so much about?" => "private security!" => "and why isn't that coercion bad?" => "because it's defending property rights!") brand of libertarianism. Most of the time, I don't even remember getting an answer at all, much less a convincing answer.

That's why "Principle of Non-Aggression" is probably a better phrasing than "freedom from coercion." It gets across the idea that while *defensive* uses of physical force are okay, *offensive* ones--no matter how good or bad their intent--are not.

Thinking in terms of nation-states (which is kinda how Libertarians look on the individual, come to think of it) it's like a nation that has an army and will only use that army to defend itself from the attacks of other armies.

Robear wrote:

Let's be clear - if you're building Libertarian ideals up from the idea that coercion is evil, then you're basing it on anarchism. If you are however willing to submit to coercive force for some things, but not others, then a dislike of coercion is not the primary motivation - that's negotiable in that kind of system.

The problem with this view is that it leaves no room for "wrong but necessary", or "wrong but we don't see another way", or "wrong but the alternative is worse". One can condemn the use of aggression to "solve" societal problems but acknowledge that it is perhaps unavoidable, or has certain benefits, or is required for the moment. A similar example I've often used in the past would be an abolitionist who argued against slavery on moral grounds but recognized how embedded it was in American society and that getting rid of it would cause a lot of disruption and potentially a lot of violence - and thus favored a slow, incremental, and careful progress towards freeing the slaves. According to your logic, the abolitionist would have no moral recourse but to argue for the immediate violent defense of slaves from aggression - after all, if you're not absolutely against it, you must be for it! It's a somewhat extreme and ridiculous position to take.

You can't base an argument on an *absolute* dislike of coercion unless you're an anarchist - and if the absolute is not available to you, then when and where coercion is acceptable is a matter for discussion and debate, not one to be discussed with absolutist certainty. You can't be absolutely against coercion in one area, and accepting of it in another, not without admitting that okay, coercion is not the big deal, it's the social policy or rules that actually drive the distinction.

On the contrary, you can argue that coercion is always a big deal, that it should be avoided if at all possible, and that it should not ever be acceptable while recognizing that it may have to be tolerated. Your argument essentially boils down to "if it's tolerated, it must be acceptable", which I believe is clearly untrue (and rather insulting in a number of contexts). Such tolerance is especially necessary for libertarians who live in a world of people who find routine government aggression not only acceptable but preferable.

As a libertarian, I see libertarianism as one end of a spectrum, with statism at the other end. Libertarians value liberty above most other things, and believe that people have a right to control their own life and associations, be responsible for their own choices, and that liberty is the key to a better, more peaceful, more prosperous society. Statists, on the other hand, believe that society must be controlled, planned, and regimented by the leaders of the state (however selected), and that individuals must subordinate themselves to the state or be subjugated by force.

The difference between libertarians and others who value liberty is the weight of the value placed on liberty. At one extreme we have Patrick Henry, with "liberty or death!" At the other, we have Kim Jong Il and North Korea, where individual liberty is virtually nonexistent and the state has absolute control over nearly every aspect of life. This weight is what separates libertarians from other political philosophies. For example, a conservative might value liberty, but values feeling secure more. This would lead that person to support legislation such as the Patriot Act. Similarly, a progressive might value liberty, but values providing government healthcare more, and thus supports a single-payer government-run healthcare system. In most cases, a libertarian would value liberty more highly, and thus would oppose those things. Some might draw the line in different places, and where that line is drawn is a subject of much argument amongst libertarians. However, they self-identify with the group because at least other libertarians understand, acknowledge, and value the liberty axis of decision-making, unlike most progressives or conservatives.

Okay. Let's think about what you just said.

"Principle of non-aggression". Defensive uses are okay. Sure.

Please define defensive. Why are individual property rights something that can be defended, but collective tax obligations not?

Aetius: Here's the problem with your comparison to abolitionism:

An abolitionist may take small steps to try to move towards the goal of abolition, but the end goal is [em]always[/em] the complete annihilation of slavery as a practice. There is no compromise [em]outcome[/em], there are only compromises along the way.

If that is parallel with libertarianism, then the end goal is [em]always[/em] the complete annihilation of government—which is the same as anarchism.

That is the fundamental concern we raise with such absolutes. If you say "coercion should be no more [em]than is necessary[/em]", you can talk about "Okay, how much is necessary? Can we do with a little less? This policy is important, is it worth the trade-off in coercion that is required to implement it?" If you say "coercion must be abolished", then you can't do that. You don't have to abolish it all at once, sure—but you still aim to abolish it completely.

[em]I[/em] believe that the state should coerce individuals as little as necessary. But I believe that the necessary amount exists, because individuals and corporations try to shirk their duty to society, because individuals and corporations try to externalize their costs, because there are some things that are more important than freedom from coercion.

Am I a libertarian?

Is there any amount of coercion that a libertarian could accept as "this is an okay amount, it's worth it to have this much in exchange for the benefits we gain"?

And that suggests that the distinction between "unacceptable" and "acceptable" isn't "coercion" and "no-coercion", it's "government" and "no-government".

It's the simple schoolyard rule - you shouldn't start fights, but you have the right to defend yourself.

The distinction is between initiating force to get what you want, and reserving force for defensive purposes. Governments across the spectrum do not reserve the use of force for defense only - it is routine for them to initiate aggression against people who happen to live inside their borders.

My ideal government, in fact, is one that operates without initiating force.

Hypatian wrote:

Okay. Let's think about what you just said.

"Principle of non-aggression". Defensive uses are okay. Sure.

Please define defensive. Why are individual property rights something that can be defended, but collective tax obligations not?

Ownership. Taxes are obligations placed on things you don't own. You can't claim self-defense of something you don't own (just keeping it simple here and not getting into when a third-party can step in and help one side in a fight and all that).

edit: To be clear, I do believe tax obligations are moral and that there are acceptable offensive uses of force, but they depend on a different argument than that which Libertarians make about property rights. Just because I disagree with Libertarianism doesn't mean I want to see them face arguments that miss their point or are based on misunderstandings.

CheezePavilion wrote:

Ownership. Taxes are obligations placed on things you don't own. You can't claim self-defense of something you don't own (just keeping it simple here and not getting into when a third-party can step in and help one side in a fight and all that).

Okay, so the problem isn't coercion. It's ownership. Is that right? Why is property ownership axiomatically the most important thing?

Can I claim self-defense of my own health with regard to pollution, when I do not own any property? Can a group of us in common interest band together as a community and establish rules about pollution of the air, and establish an enforcement organization to defend us from polluters? Can we then establish enforcement within the community of payment of support for that organization to defend our livelihoods from those who would take advantage of the benefit of the anti-pollution force but don't wish to bear the costs?

Do you see where I'm going here? Why is that any different? It's not—except for the arbitrary boundary of property ownership. And the arbitrary boundary of private vs government.

Hypatian wrote:

Aetius: Here's the problem with your comparison to abolitionism:

An abolitionist may take small steps to try to move towards the goal of abolition, but the end goal is [em]always[/em] the complete annihilation of slavery as a practice. There is no compromise [em]outcome[/em], there are only compromises along the way.

And similarly, the libertarian goal would be the complete annihilation of the societal acceptance of the initiation of force - not the elimination of government (necessarily).

If that is parallel with libertarianism, then the end goal is [em]always[/em] the complete annihilation of government—which is the same as anarchism.

That assumes that government cannot be based on anything besides aggression. I think it's possible for a government to exist while following the non-aggression principle. Of course, it would be a very different government.

[em]I[/em] believe that the state should coerce individuals as little as necessary. But I believe that the necessary amount exists, because individuals and corporations try to shirk their duty to society, because individuals and corporations try to externalize their costs, because there are some things that are more important than freedom from coercion.

Am I a libertarian?

Can you think of any cases where you would value liberty higher than "duty to society"? If so, perhaps - you might fall near the middle of the spectrum. How many things are more important that freedom from coercion? Everything? Most things? It's hard to tell.

Is there any amount of coercion that a libertarian could accept as "this is an okay amount, it's worth it to have this much in exchange for the benefits we gain"?

Probably not, no. However, there might be an amount of coercion a libertarian would tolerate because the society doesn't seem to be able to come up with something better. That doesn't mean, however, that the coercive system is acceptable or okay, merely that it hasn't yet been improved upon.

Hypatian wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Ownership. Taxes are obligations placed on things you don't own. You can't claim self-defense of something you don't own (just keeping it simple here and not getting into when a third-party can step in and help one side in a fight and all that).

Okay, so the problem isn't coercion. It's ownership. Is that right? Why is property ownership axiomatically the most important thing?

Because none of us are Communists? And it's a lot easier to make the argument that self-defense is moral than to make the argument that taxes are moral.

Can I claim self-defense of my own health with regard to pollution, when I do not own any property?

I'm not saying Libertarianism doesn't run into MAJOR issues once it hits the real world, and I've used this example myself, including the sonic assault of my neighbor's noise pollution he calls music. : )

However, there's a difference between showing that Libertarianism isn't workable in the real world and showing that the arguments it uses are flawed.

Can a group of us in common interest band together as a community and establish rules about pollution of the air, and establish an enforcement organization to defend us from polluters? Can we then establish enforcement within the community of payment of support for that organization to defend our livelihoods from those who would take advantage of the benefit of the anti-pollution force but don't wish to bear the costs?

Do you see where I'm going here? Why is that any different? It's not—except for the arbitrary boundary of property ownership. And the arbitrary boundary of private vs government.

What's different is that in these examples is everyone in the community has banded together--whatever you establish, you establish by consent.

Governments are different--even America was not founded on universal consent.

CheezePavilion wrote:

Because none of us are Communists?

That's a rather bold (and incorrect) assertion. Both in the concrete and the abstract. In the concrete, because I'd definitely be considered a communist by some folks. In the abstract, because when you're discussing these ideas you must assume they are competing with all of the other ideas—not just the ones you think worth considering.

If you want to assert that private property trumps communal property, you must support that assertion.

Hypatian wrote:

Can I claim self-defense of my own health with regard to pollution, when I do not own any property?

Conceivably, yes. You do own property - yourself. You'd have to prove harm, and identify the source of the harm (one of the great problems with air pollution in general, not limited to libertarian legal issues).

Can a group of us in common interest band together as a community and establish rules about pollution of the air, and establish an enforcement organization to defend us from polluters?

Certainly.

Can we then establish enforcement within the community of payment of support for that organization to defend our livelihoods from those who would take advantage of the benefit of the anti-pollution force but don't wish to bear the costs?

Certainly.

Do you see where I'm going here? Why is that any different? It's not—except for the arbitrary boundary of property ownership. And the arbitrary boundary of private vs government.

The thing you miss is that governments are not voluntary. All the things you describe are voluntary - joining the group, setting up the rules, enforcing the rules, those are all set up with the voluntary agreement of the group. Those who do not agree have the option to leave and go elsewhere, modify their agreement, or perhaps reduce their involvement with the group.

Governments do not work that way. They simply assume control over citizens who live inside arbitrary boundaries on a map, and proceed to set the rules and enforce the rules without obtaining agreement from their subjects. At most, they obtain a dubious agreement of a relatively small percentage of their subjects to the leadership of certain people, who are then free to set and enforce whatever rules they deem fit.

Aetius wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Aetius: Here's the problem with your comparison to abolitionism:

An abolitionist may take small steps to try to move towards the goal of abolition, but the end goal is [em]always[/em] the complete annihilation of slavery as a practice. There is no compromise [em]outcome[/em], there are only compromises along the way.

And similarly, the libertarian goal would be the complete annihilation of the societal acceptance of the initiation of force - not the elimination of government (necessarily).

But, you have argued that taxation is a form of coercion—and a government cannot function without the resources necessary to undertake the tasks it has been charged with. If a government has no resources, it can undertake no tasks. Is it then a government at all?

Aetius wrote:

That assumes that government cannot be based on anything besides aggression. I think it's possible for a government to exist while following the non-aggression principle. Of course, it would be a very different government.

Please describe this very different government. What form would it take? What services would it provide?

Aetius wrote:

Can you think of any cases where you would value liberty higher than "duty to society"? If so, perhaps - you might fall near the middle of the spectrum. How many things are more important that freedom from coercion? Everything? Most things? It's hard to tell.

Well. Let's see. Public safety (protection from murder, fires, etc.) Public health (protection from epidemics, unsafe food and pharmaceuticals, etc.) Public infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc., in general things that are of general utility to all but which do not generate useful amounts of profits.) Public education. Enforcement of regulations to protect individuals as well as commonly held resources.

All of those things are more important than freedom from coercion.

Aetius wrote:

Probably not, no. However, there might be an amount of coercion a libertarian would tolerate because the society doesn't seem to be able to come up with something better. That doesn't mean, however, that the coercive system is acceptable or okay, merely that it hasn't yet been improved upon.

So you believe that it [em]is[/em] possible to have a society in which there is no need for coercion at all. Again: Could you please paint a picture of what you imagine it might look like? (Note: That should probably include either no coercion to protect private property, or an argument for why private property is axiomatically important. Because otherwise, a system with no private property will need less coercion, since nobody will have to defend it.)

Hypatian wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Because none of us are Communists?

That's a rather bold (and incorrect) assertion.

While it certainly may be incorrect, I don't think it's very bold : D

My point is unless you're a Communist, you probably believe in private property rights. When people criticize Libertarianism, they have a habit of throwing arguments at it that would demolish their own political beliefs without considering the effect of saucing their own gander with what they're pouring on the Libertarian goose.

Aetius wrote:

The thing you miss is that governments are not voluntary. All the things you describe are voluntary - joining the group, setting up the rules, enforcing the rules, those are all set up with the voluntary agreement of the group. Those who do not agree have the option to leave and go elsewhere, modify their agreement, or perhaps reduce their involvement with the group.

No—those who do not agree will be forced to move elsewhere. We will not allow them to stay and freeload. If they remain in the area, they impose a cost on our community. If they do not shoulder their share of the burden, they can't stay. If we cannot prevent them from staying, we cannot prevent them from imposing costs on us unfairly.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Hypatian wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Because none of us are Communists?

That's a rather bold (and incorrect) assertion.

While it certainly may be incorrect, I don't think it's very bold : D

My point is unless you're a Communist, you probably believe in private property rights. When people criticize Libertarianism, they have a habit of throwing arguments at it that would demolish their own political beliefs without considering the effect of saucing their own gander with what they're pouring on the Libertarian goose.

Consider this: If there is no private property, then there is no need for coercion to defend the private property. Hence, a system in which there is no private property requires less coercion than one which does. Therefore, if coercion is to be minimized, then private property should be abolished.

This is why you cannot [em]assume[/em] private property is axiomatically important. Either it holds primacy over non-coercion (so: property is more important than non-aggression), or ti doesn't (so: it should be abolished, as a source of aggression). If it's more important than non-coercion, that's a rather significant thing to note.

Hypatian wrote:

Consider this: If there is no private property, then there is no need for coercion to defend the private property. Hence, a system in which there is no private property requires less coercion than one which does. Therefore, if coercion is to be minimized, then private property should be abolished.

There's a difference between "coercion is to be minimized" and "coercion is wrong unless in response to stop a prior, out-of-the-blue act of coercion itself."

As far as I can see, that doesn't change the fact that there'll be less coercion if there's no private property. In fact, it doesn't seem to address that point at all.

To put it a different way: Why is libertarianism with private property preferable to libertarianism without private property?

Hypatian wrote:

As far as I can see, that doesn't change the fact that there'll be less coercion if there's no private property. In fact, it doesn't seem to address that point at all.

I agree, but your point is not relevant. Your point is about the position that coercion is to be minimized, not the one we're talking about here which is that coercion is only to be used in self-defense.

To put it a different way: Why is libertarianism with private property preferable to libertarianism without private property?

Many of the same reasons as to why anything with private property preferable to anything without private property.

In other words, is this a point about Libertarianism, or is this a point about private property to which many other political philosophies are vulnerable?

Quote:
You can't base an argument on an *absolute* dislike of coercion unless you're an anarchist - and if the absolute is not available to you, then when and where coercion is acceptable is a matter for discussion and debate, not one to be discussed with absolutist certainty. You can't be absolutely against coercion in one area, and accepting of it in another, not without admitting that okay, coercion is not the big deal, it's the social policy or rules that actually drive the distinction.

Aetius:
On the contrary, you can argue that coercion is always a big deal, that it should be avoided if at all possible, and that it should not ever be acceptable while recognizing that it may have to be tolerated. Your argument essentially boils down to "if it's tolerated, it must be acceptable", which I believe is clearly untrue (and rather insulting in a number of contexts). Such tolerance is especially necessary for libertarians who live in a world of people who find routine government aggression not only acceptable but preferable.

Actually, no, it does not boil down to that. You missed my point. I'm saying that if you *always* view coercion as wrong, you can't accept it even as a last alternative. If you *do* tolerate it because "nothing better has come along", then that's a statement that yes, there are more important things than absolute non-coercion as a primary principle, even if those things are exceptions to the rule.

I'm arguing against the use of absolutist *stance*, not for coercion in all it's forms (or even most of them, although I do believe we all consent to be governed, which I think you'd disagree with). There are many things wrong with policing, politics and the like that could be said to affect the coercive power of government. But it's hard to find out what libertarians think about them because the argument bounces between "it's never okay to coerce" and "well, *this* is okay because we can't think of something better". It's *okay* to have exceptions to a philosophy, but that does mean that there's a responsibility to incorporate those into discussions. Otherwise, there's a lot of tail-chasing trying to sort out what the exceptions are in any given discussion.

"Should not ever be acceptable" does not admit "may have to be tolerated" into the discussion. "Is acceptable under these circumstances" does, even if it's distasteful. But at least it makes it easier for outsiders to understand the limits that are being discussed. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

CheezePavilion wrote:

My point is unless you're a Communist, you probably believe in private property rights.

I know the conversation's moved on from this a bit, but the original question wasn't "Why do we need private property?"; it was "Why is property ownership axiomatically the most important thing?"

I actually think this gets at the heart of the difference between libertarianism and anarchism, or libertarianism and liberalism--a lot of libertarians believe that property rights are the most important thing, from which all other rights flow, and any infringement on property rights is necessarily immoral (even if, occasionally, it might be necessary). But I don't believe that at all. I think strong property rights are important for human happiness and should therefore be maximized where possible, but I also think that something like taxation, which clearly infringes on property rights but also is absolutely necessary for a working modern society, isn't immoral or even regrettable--it's just the best thing to do. Basically, I don't think property rights are intrinsically valuable, and if there's a conflict between property and human happiness or human flourishing, humans win every time. And believing otherwise is pretty alien to me.

As a sidenote, this is also why the libertarian principle of non-aggression seems really weird to me. Self-defense of life and liberty, sure, but property? If someone's hanging out on a corner of your land, but not negatively affecting it or being threatening, that's aggression and you're justified in responding violently? That doesn't seem like self-defense.

Remember, Jonstock, in the US libertarian thought has had a lot of corporate sponsorship since the 60's or so, with the intent of building a political constituency to protect "property rights" for corporations (hence, anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-union stances). It's hard to extract that sort of influence from the pre-existing notions of libertarianism.

jonstock wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

My point is unless you're a Communist, you probably believe in private property rights.

I know the conversation's moved on from this a bit, but the original question wasn't "Why do we need private property?"; it was "Why is property ownership axiomatically the most important thing?"

Yeah I should have nipped that in the bud--check the conversation previous to that for context, and after it for clarification.

As a sidenote, this is also why the libertarian principle of non-aggression seems really weird to me. Self-defense of life and liberty, sure, but property? If someone's hanging out on a corner of your land, but not negatively affecting it or being threatening, that's aggression and you're justified in responding violently? That doesn't seem like self-defense.

I think the issue of *appropriate* levels of self-defense is another question.

Which, of course, is where the criticism that "Libertarians aren't anti-coercion, they're anti-government and use coercion as the excuse" comes from. If private police forces are okay, that means coercion is okay...

The central definition, as I understand it, of Libertarianism is this: a central government must exist, to hold the monopoly of force. It must exercise however much force is required to maintain that monopoly to the largest extent possible. The overall goal is to minimize to whatever degree possible the total violence and coercion in a social system. The goal is for as many things as possible to be a matter of voluntary, rather than forced, participation.

What Libertarians believe is that violence and coercion are bad, but they are also human, and we are stuck with both forever. Their goal is to minimize the use of force, fraud, and coercion, without being under the illusion that they would ever completely disappear.

Coercion is bad, mmmkay? But Libertarians (and any functioning adult, pretty much) understand that sometimes all you have is bad choices, and thus you choose the least bad one. At least some coercion is required in a society, so as to allow for strong contract enforcement and strong enforcement of laws.... but the goal is to have as few laws as are necessary.

Ultimately, when you pass a law, you are using the threat of violence by the state to tell people they have to act in a given way. If they don't comply, they will have things taken from them, up to and including their liberty and/or their life. And it's the Libertarian position that a group of people does not inherit any new moral rights just by way of being a group. If Robear doesn't have the right to demand 35% of my paycheck at gunpoint to pay for programs he likes, then he doesn't have the right to do it through indirect proxies. If Paleo can't pull a knife on me and demand that I pay for BadKen's kidney transplant, then it's just as wrong to hire police to do it for him. Passing laws is just hiring hit men to do the taking for us... it all looks civilized, but try to opt out strongly enough, and you will pay with your life.

Groups do not accrue any more moral rights than the individuals that compose them. Robear and Paleo working together don't have any more rights than they do working individually. The only real additional rights they get from accruing more people to work with, is that they can be more violent than smaller groups. All political power ultimately comes from the barrel of a gun, and Libertarianism strives, as much as possible, to remove violence from the way we organize ourselves as a species.

There appears to be a certain amount of theft and coercion required to keep a society functioning; the goal of Libertarianism is to reduce both those things to the smallest amount possible, but no smaller.

I've talked at some length elsewhere about problems I see here -- one of the largest being that humans simply can't do the kinds of relationship tracking that Libertarians seem to want them to. Keeping some kind of central repository of behavior and reputation tracking, which is what would be required absent regulation by force, is extremely expensive, and it would be easy to lie to that kind of an organization. I don't think that people would be willing to directly pay the subscription fees to let an organization like that function. It would need to be like Consumer Reports, but about a thousand times larger, tracking every piece in every supply chain in every product they covered, and thus a thousand times as expensive. And I just don't think people would be willing to pay for that. And without being able to use force, such monitoring companies would have a very difficult time determining what the truth was, if they believed a company was misleading them. In our present system, regulators can have force authorized to determine what the truth is, but I don't think that could happen in a Libertarian state.

Regardless, I think there are some core truths to the ethos that are strongly worth considering and adopting. We shouldn't pass laws or impose taxes except for things that we need as a society, not just things we want. Organized theft is still theft. Some of it is required, but we should understand that this is exactly what is happening. Imposing a tax is an evil action; does the good from the resulting program outweigh that evil? In the case of schooling, for instance, I think that for many years it was a huge win. But I am no longer convinced that it continues to be cost-effective. I suspect that we're doing more harm by taking the money away from people, than we're doing good in educating children. The good no longer appears to outweigh the wrong from the original taking, but the taking continues anyway.

Malor wrote:

Regardless, I think there are some core truths to the ethos that are strongly worth considering and adopting.

I think a lot of people feel this way. I know I do to a large extent: I wouldn't go so far as you as to say "taxes are theft" but taxes aren't club membership fees, either. It's not the fact that people are organized that changes the equation, it's that some problems require organization and along the lines of what you said in your paragraph about problems, sometimes organizations need to be created on the basis of something less than universal consent. Those organizations should also be as democratic as possible--they should come as close as they can to universal consent as we can get them.

To try and put that into one (long) sentence as summary: what I take away from Libertarianism as worth adopting is the idea that the legitimacy of organizations to use force other than for self-defense flows from trying to solve a particular problem that requires organization, when it does it in the most democratic way possible.

edit: of course, now that I think about it, again--that sounds like it owes as much to Jefferson as it does to any exclusive Libertarian source. Maybe it would be better to say that Libertarianism acted as the torchbearer for that idea as many of the other political ideologies that trace their roots to liberalism became more collectivist over time.

We shouldn't pass laws or impose taxes except for things that we need as a society, not just things we want. Organized theft is still theft. Some of it is required, but we should understand that this is exactly what is happening. Imposing a tax is an evil action; does the good from the resulting program outweigh that evil? In the case of schooling, for instance, I think that for many years it was a huge win. But I am no longer convinced that it continues to be cost-effective. I suspect that we're doing more harm by taking the money away from people, than we're doing good in educating children. The good no longer appears to outweigh the wrong from the original taking, but the taking continues anyway.

That gets me thinking of a simplistic, imperfect, but possibly useful comparison:

Liberal: good outweighs the bad on X and Y, but not Z
Conservative: good outweighs the bad on Y and Z, but not on x because my scale is different
people who are calling themselves Libertarian: good only outweighs the bad on Y because my scale is more sensitive to liberty
Libertarian: I reject all this weighing of good vs. bad in the first place--liberty outweighs everything

CheezePavilion wrote:

Libertarian: I reject all this weighing of good vs. bad in the first place--liberty outweighs everything

This is the main reason I consider myself Libertarian. Maybe I'm not officially. Whatever. But my default position is that that outweighs everything, yes.

Hypatian wrote:

Why is libertarianism with private property preferable to libertarianism without private property?

Because at its core libertarianism is just mental masturbation to justify selfish behavior.

Because at its core libertarianism is just mental masturbation to justify selfish behavior.

And the contrary arguments are just mental masturbation to justify theft.