Libertarianism: what is it?

Hypatian wrote:

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?

Not exactly. Taxation is a form of aggression, and it's initiated by governments in order to obtain resources - that's what makes it wrong. However, aggression is not the only way to acquire resources: payment of fees for services, lotteries, or donations are all ways to obtain resources without aggression. Indeed, they are the methods used by virtually everyone except governments - and criminals.

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?

It would obviously be much smaller than our current government. It's primary purpose would be to prevent other governments from either arising internally or invading externally, so the services it would provide would be national defense and the protection of life and property from aggression. Those in and of themselves are large and complex tasks, more than enough to occupy a government.

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.

I suspect that, since you didn't name a single area where you value liberty and freedom from aggression higher than these other things, you're not a libertarian. You should understand what statements like these mean to libertarians. Take, for example, government education. What you mean, to a libertarian, when you say you value government education above freedom from aggression, is that you yourself are willing to kill or imprison other people if they do not go to the school you wish them to attend, or if they do not pay for your children to go to school. Is that, indeed, what you mean? If not, perhaps you should reconsider.

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.)

I believe you are confusing coercion with aggression, which is why I was careful to differentiate above. I do not believe it is possible to have a society without coercion, as there will always be some people who prefer taking by force who must be stopped. Libertarians are not generally pacifists, as a general rule we believe strongly in self-defense. However, I do believe that it's possible to have a society where initiation of force, aggression, is viewed similarly to slavery in today's society - denigrated, illegal, and morally repugnant.

Private property is important because it flows from self-ownership and self-determination. If you own yourself, no one has the right to violate that ownership, such as forcing you to be a slave - and you have the right to defend yourself from such aggression. If you own yourself, then you own your labor - and thus an ownership stake in things produced by your labor. I can go into the details here if you'd like, but essentially libertarians do not think it is a coincidence that property rights are the basis of trade, and thus the basis of civilized society and the benefits (and perils) of economic growth and development.

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.

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

Largely due to what I discussed in the previous response. Without property rights, there cannot be self-ownership and trade. Worse, without property rights there is actually more coercion and aggression, due to human nature. People quickly rationalize that "some animals are more equal than others", and the definition of "need" quickly becomes murky and manipulated in favor of those who are the most willing to initiate aggression against the others. Without any lines to determine where the boundaries are, aggression defines them.

FFS. Pick a term and stick with it. Last year it was coercion, this year it's aggression, both times it's "the thing that we claim that government does that we've decided to define as evil so that we can define government as evil."

Aetius wrote:
Hypatian wrote:
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.

I suspect that, since you didn't name a single area where you value liberty and freedom from aggression higher than these other things, you're not a libertarian. You should understand what statements like these mean to libertarians. Take, for example, government education. What you mean, to a libertarian, when you say you value government education above freedom from aggression, is that you yourself are willing to kill or imprison other people if they do not go to the school you wish them to attend, or if they do not pay for your children to go to school. Is that, indeed, what you mean? If not, perhaps you should reconsider.

No. See, when we started this and before you moved the f*cking goalposts, we were talking about the things you define as equivalent to taxation. I think it is reasonable for everyone to be taxed so that there is a fair minimum amount of public education available freely to all. If someone chooses not to pay their taxes, they are not pulling their fair share of the load of society, and it is fair to fine them. If they are capable of paying the fine and the taxes but choose not to do so, it is fair to go to the places they keep their money and require those institutions to give up that money in their place. It is also fair to jail them as a punishment for continued recalcitrance. If they fight back against being jailed, it is reasonable to apply appropriate levels of force to ensure they go to prison, and it is appropriate to levy further punishments for disobeying the rule of law. If they fight back with deadly force is it reasonable to apply deadly force to their capture, or if necessary to kill them as they are presenting a clear and present danger to everyone in the vicinity.

None of this is unreasonable. None of it is as stupidly strawman as "I am willing to kill or imprison people unless they pay for my kids to go to school". Only an idiot would think that this long chain of events is equivalent to that. Does it come down to the same thing in the end? Yes. But at every step the individual in question has options, knows their options, and chooses to escalate the situation.

In a system without liberty, the police come and put you in a prison nobody knows about (or summarily execute you) for vague offenses that nobody even knows about. They make whatever rules they want, and they apply them however they want.

In a system with liberty, we each have a choice about how we want to go about doing things. We apply our influence to the government in order to establish the laws by which we live in society. It is there that the questions of liberty apply: should this law be passed? What should the punishment for disobeying the law be?

When the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were written (speaking of the U.S. in particular now), we established a system by which laws can be established and enforced. We also set certain limits on what things can be made into law and what can't, and what things are reasonable in enforcing the law, and what aren't. Again, this is about liberty: it is about fairness, and only putting in place those constraints necessary to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".

Liberty isn't something you have when everybody is free to do anything they want. Liberty is something you have when everybody is as free as possible to do everything they want without interfering in the ability of others to have that same freedom.

Aetius wrote:

Private property is important because it flows from self-ownership and self-determination. If you own yourself, no one has the right to violate that ownership, such as forcing you to be a slave - and you have the right to defend yourself from such aggression. If you own yourself, then you own your labor - and thus an ownership stake in things produced by your labor. I can go into the details here if you'd like, but essentially libertarians do not think it is a coincidence that property rights are the basis of trade, and thus the basis of civilized society and the benefits (and perils) of economic growth and development.

Okay, sure. When did you make the land that your house sits on? You didn't? You bought it from someone else? Okay, when did they make it? Oh, they didn't? They bought it from the government? I guess the government made it, then? No, they stole it from somebody? I guess the people they stole it from made it? No? They found it?

So it's first come first serve, then? Too bad that all of the land is already taken and there's none left. Perhaps if the world were an infinite plane with equal amounts of useful resources in all places I could choose to go somewhere and establish a new territory if I wanted to live by my own rules, instead of having to work with all of the other people who want the same things I do and needing to work with them to decide on who gets to use what.

I put it to you that even without private property (or, alternately: even when some f*ckers came and took all the property first), there is self-ownership and there is trade. What you trade is your labor, not your goods. You do not need to own things to own yourself. You do not need to own the things you make to own the making of them.

In short: You assume from observation of history that human nature leads to what you suggest, but you do not prove it. In much the same way I assume from observation of history that human nature leads people in a society like the one you support to be ruled by those who collect the most power to themselves and rule as feudal lords, oligarchs, or the like. In fact, we may both be right on those things.

Perhaps the best government is one that is somewhere in between, which balances the collective good against the individual good, in service to its populace.

I think some people tried to invent one of those, once.

Aetius, I have a question regarding taxes vs. fee-for-use in your post. Measurably, how are annual income/property taxes different from a fee-for-use for the military protection, social safety net, and/or public services/facilities we have every day? Even in the much more limited government you mention, fees for pan-national services would have to be non-voluntary or a significant portion of the populace is going to skip paying them.

Taxation would appear to be equivalent to the insurance model, wherein you pay for membership regardless of your usage of any particular service during the year. If you don't pay your annual insurance, your coverage is removed. Since the government lacks a viable means of determining who has purchased coverage, how is it unreasonable to enforce payment through civil actions and, if need be, criminal charges/detainment? I'd be very open to seeing governments allowing (or forcing) people to liquidate their assets and leave the coverage area at the beginning of the year without accruing any further debt for said coverage, which would seem to fit nicely with the libertarian approach of freedom to associate (or not) with people and organizations.

Kraint wrote:

I'd be very open to seeing governments allowing (or forcing) people to liquidate their assets and leave the coverage area at the beginning of the year without accruing any further debt for said coverage, which would seem to fit nicely with the libertarian approach of freedom to associate (or not) with people and organizations.

Exile seems a very problematic punishment in the 21st century.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Kraint wrote:

I'd be very open to seeing governments allowing (or forcing) people to liquidate their assets and leave the coverage area at the beginning of the year without accruing any further debt for said coverage, which would seem to fit nicely with the libertarian approach of freedom to associate (or not) with people and organizations.

Exile seems a very problematic punishment in the 21st century.

Indeed, but that is why it would be voluntary. By staying within a government's coverage area, you are agreeing to play by the set rules and regulations. In the US, you have the opportunity to lobby for change in those rules, but you must abide by them as long as they are in place. If you do not wish to follow those rules, a peaceful way to opt out is certainly better than some of the punishments for refusing to abide by them within the country's borders.

Hypatian wrote:

FFS. Pick a term and stick with it. Last year it was coercion, this year it's aggression, both times it's "the thing that we claim that government does that we've decided to define as evil so that we can define government as evil."

What I'm trying to do is make sure that people understand that what libertarians oppose is the initiation of force, not the use of force in defense. There was some confusion upthread about the use of the word coercion, and it was being used in the sense of "forcing people to do things" without regard for who was initiating. I'm trying to be more clear, thats all.

No. See, when we started this and before you moved the f*cking goalposts, we were talking about the things you define as equivalent to taxation.

I thought we were talking about valuing liberty against other things, and whether or not you valued liberty more than other things, or freedom from coercion(aggression) more than other things.

I think it is reasonable for everyone to be taxed so that there is a fair minimum amount of public education available freely to all. If someone chooses not to pay their taxes, they are not pulling their fair share of the load of society, and it is fair to fine them. If they are capable of paying the fine and the taxes but choose not to do so, it is fair to go to the places they keep their money and require those institutions to give up that money in their place. It is also fair to jail them as a punishment for continued recalcitrance. If they fight back against being jailed, it is reasonable to apply appropriate levels of force to ensure they go to prison, and it is appropriate to levy further punishments for disobeying the rule of law. If they fight back with deadly force is it reasonable to apply deadly force to their capture, or if necessary to kill them as they are presenting a clear and present danger to everyone in the vicinity.

None of this is unreasonable. None of it is as stupidly strawman as "I am willing to kill or imprison people unless they pay for my kids to go to school".

How is it a strawman when you just said that it wasn't unreasonable to kill someone because they refused to pay taxes, and the taxes are used for public schools and enforcing attendance?

Only an idiot would think that this long chain of events is equivalent to that. Does it come down to the same thing in the end? Yes. But at every step the individual in question has options, knows their options, and chooses to escalate the situation.

At each step the individual has only the choice to surrender liberty or property, or be attacked. What kind of choice is that? The people doing the escalating are the government, not the individual - they are the ones threatening force at every step.

In a system without liberty, the police come and put you in a prison nobody knows about (or summarily execute you) for vague offenses that nobody even knows about. They make whatever rules they want, and they apply them however they want.

That is a system without liberty, but it is not the only one. Say, for example, a law was made that certain drugs were illegal to possess or sell, and the punishments were clearly laid out. There are no hidden prisons, no vague offenses, and it was all done above board. What right does the government have to tell people what they can possess and ingest, and throw them in jail or kill them when they don't comply? Is that not an infringement of liberty, despite being done in the open?

In a system with liberty, we each have a choice about how we want to go about doing things. We apply our influence to the government in order to establish the laws by which we live in society. It is there that the questions of liberty apply: should this law be passed? What should the punishment for disobeying the law be?

You're making assumptions here. Who is "we"? Most people do not have influence with the government, or very little. The laws are written and established by a tiny group of people who are elected by some other people, opposed by some people, and ignored by most people. Yet this tiny group has the right to establish laws by which everyone will live? By what authority, or what agreement? The questions of liberty absolutely apply there, but they also apply for those who disagree with the system, and have it imposed upon them.

When the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were written (speaking of the U.S. in particular now), we established a system by which laws can be established and enforced.

Again, who is "we"? A handful of rich white landowners?

We also set certain limits on what things can be made into law and what can't, and what things are reasonable in enforcing the law, and what aren't.

Limits which are routinely ignored by the tiny group of people who make the laws today.

Liberty is something you have when everybody is as free as possible to do everything they want without interfering in the ability of others to have that same freedom.

I agree - so why again are we taxing people to pay for, say, public schools? Does the lack of public schools somehow interfere with people's liberty to be educated, or not, as they see fit? Or vice-versa?

Aetius wrote:

Private property is important because it flows from self-ownership and self-determination. If you own yourself, no one has the right to violate that ownership, such as forcing you to be a slave - and you have the right to defend yourself from such aggression. If you own yourself, then you own your labor - and thus an ownership stake in things produced by your labor. I can go into the details here if you'd like, but essentially libertarians do not think it is a coincidence that property rights are the basis of trade, and thus the basis of civilized society and the benefits (and perils) of economic growth and development.

Okay, sure. When did you make the land that your house sits on? You didn't? You bought it from someone else? Okay, when did they make it? Oh, they didn't? They bought it from the government? I guess the government made it, then? No, they stole it from somebody? I guess the people they stole it from made it? No? They found it?

It's a sad historical fact that they likely didn't find it, but rather took it by force - repeatedly over the course of centuries. That doesn't mean that such actions should be conscionable now, nor that the initial taking was right. We can't easily undo the mistakes of the past, but we can allow them to be corrected over time. By protecting property rights we can eventually reach a much more reasonable distribution, as has been accomplished painfully in the U.S. over the last hundred years or so with regard to blacks owning property. We're well past homesteading and claiming unowned land at this point (for the most part). However, such things will again become crucial when we start to colonize the Moon and other planets. (In which case, yes, the first people to homestead a particular plot of land should own it, because it was previously unowned.)

I put it to you that even without private property (or, alternately: even when some f*ckers came and took all the property first), there is self-ownership and there is trade. What you trade is your labor, not your goods. You do not need to own things to own yourself. You do not need to own the things you make to own the making of them.

I won't argue this here, we'll get derailed - just note that libertarians disagree that significant trade is possible without private property, due to problems with determining who controls goods and thus can exchange them for other goods.

In short: You assume from observation of history that human nature leads to what you suggest, but you do not prove it.

See, here's the thing - I don't. I assume from observation of history that people will do what they have always done: establish more-or-less tyrannical governments that then grow exponentially in power until they abuse the population so much they collapse in violent popular uprisings, and then the process repeats itself. Libertarians want to break that cycle.

In much the same way I assume from observation of history that human nature leads people in a society like the one you support to be ruled by those who collect the most power to themselves and rule as feudal lords, oligarchs, or the like.

If that's the case, then consider this. In a society that treats aggression like slavery - denigrated, illegal, and considered morally repugnant - how would a feudal lord establish himself? Feudal lords relied entirely upon direct aggression towards their subjects. They collected taxes at the point of a sword, and were not shy about it. They assumed the power of life and death over everyone who lived in their holding. How would that be possible in a society that believed every person had the right to resist, and that what they were doing was wrong and evil? The answer, of course, is that it could not. Feudal society only remained in existence as long as the subjects believed their lords should have those sorts of power. Once that came into doubt, the whole system began to collapse.

Perhaps the best government is one that is somewhere in between, which balances the collective good against the individual good, in service to its populace.

I think some people tried to invent one of those, once.

Perhaps. The problem is that, as Jefferson noted, the natural progression is for liberty to yield and for government to gain ground. Due to human nature, society is inherently unbalanced in favor of government. I would be comfortable in a government that remained inside the confines of the system they designed - but it got away from them, despite their best efforts at containing it. I'm not yet ready, however, to give up on the idea that government can be restrained, and a balance achieved.

Kraint wrote:

Aetius, I have a question regarding taxes vs. fee-for-use in your post. Measurably, how are annual income/property taxes different from a fee-for-use for the military protection, social safety net, and/or public services/facilities we have every day?

If I understand your question correctly, the primary difference is that fees-for-use imply a specific service that's being provided, while income taxes and property taxes are not associated with a specific service. Fee-for-use is both more transparent, and less likely to result in aggression - you can turn the water off, rather than evicting people from their homes. Of course, fee-for-use systems are usually monopolistic in our current system, which results in bizarre situations like letting people's houses burn while the firemen watch; or situations like Social Security, in which the fees paid are not invested but are instead appropriated for other uses.

Even in the much more limited government you mention, fees for pan-national services would have to be non-voluntary or a significant portion of the populace is going to skip paying them.

Libertarians would view the latter as the preferable situation, as it does not involve aggression against those who disagree. It's even arguable whether or not pan-national services would even need to exist. For example, national defense could be potentially be served in peacetime by local volunteer militias, with professional mercenaries being hired in the event of an actual war.

Taxation would appear to be equivalent to the insurance model, wherein you pay for membership regardless of your usage of any particular service during the year. If you don't pay your annual insurance, your coverage is removed. Since the government lacks a viable means of determining who has purchased coverage, how is it unreasonable to enforce payment through civil actions and, if need be, criminal charges/detainment?

It's unreasonable because the citizens never "purchased" membership, it was forced upon them. Consider the Mafia's "insurance" plan - is it reasonable to pay so that your business doesn't mysteriously burn down? It's not the fault of citizens that government can't tell who paid and who didn't - no private company has that problem. Further, even when governments permit people to opt out, they often don't permit competitive services to fill the gap, leading to people being left without options they would otherwise have.

Aetius wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

None of this is unreasonable. None of it is as stupidly strawman as "I am willing to kill or imprison people unless they pay for my kids to go to school".

How is it a strawman when you just said that it wasn't unreasonable to kill someone because they refused to pay taxes, and the taxes are used for public schools and enforcing attendance?

Very simply, because a [em]normal[/em] person can tell the difference between the two scenarios, and doesn't believe that they're somehow the same because there's an outside chance they could come to the same end result. Either you're disingenuously claiming that these two things are the same for the purposes of supporting your argument, or you can't tell the difference between the two scenarios (unlike the vast majority of humanity). Which is it?

Aetius wrote:
Only an idiot would think that this long chain of events is equivalent to that. Does it come down to the same thing in the end? Yes. But at every step the individual in question has options, knows their options, and chooses to escalate the situation.

At each step the individual has only the choice to surrender liberty or property, or be attacked. What kind of choice is that? The people doing the escalating are the government, not the individual - they are the ones threatening force at every step.

No. The individual belongs to a society, and must live by the rules of that society. At the most basic: they are required to follow the law, or they are subject to penalties. They know the law, they know the penalties. They have the choice. At every step, the individual in question is placing their own needs over the needs of the community, and because of that the community takes steps to punish that behavior—because if that behavior is allowed, the community breaks down because nobody is paying the bills any more.

The individual is the one choosing to place their own welfare above that of the community, and infringing on the liberties of their neighbors by forcing them to shoulder an unfair portion of the community's burdens.

Hypatian wrote:

That is a system without liberty, but it is not the only one. Say, for example, a law was made that certain drugs were illegal to possess or sell, and the punishments were clearly laid out. There are no hidden prisons, no vague offenses, and it was all done above board. What right does the government have to tell people what they can possess and ingest, and throw them in jail or kill them when they don't comply? Is that not an infringement of liberty, despite being done in the open?

In our system: the right of self-rule. The government is composed of the people, it's not some alien thing that comes in and makes sh*t up. It is the means by which we make rules for the good of the group instead of the good of the individual. Members of society have given up their right to use those drugs in exchange for being protected from others using those drugs. There's an additional question of whether or not drug abuse in others is something people need to be protected against—but that's not a question of whether there is liberty or not, that's a question of whether the law is a good law or not.

Aetius wrote:
In a system with liberty, we each have a choice about how we want to go about doing things. We apply our influence to the government in order to establish the laws by which we live in society. It is there that the questions of liberty apply: should this law be passed? What should the punishment for disobeying the law be?

You're making assumptions here. Who is "we"? Most people do not have influence with the government, or very little. The laws are written and established by a tiny group of people who are elected by some other people, opposed by some people, and ignored by most people. Yet this tiny group has the right to establish laws by which everyone will live? By what authority, or what agreement? The questions of liberty absolutely apply there, but they also apply for those who disagree with the system, and have it imposed upon them.

If people don't have influence on the government, then the government is broken. Not "all governments", just that one. The government of the U.S. was founded on this principle. Is it broken? Yes, it's a bit broken. However, the problem isn't that we, the people of the United States, are allowed to govern ourselves as a union—that idea is perfectly fine. The problem is that the will of the people is imperfectly expressed.

Even if it were perfectly expressed, we'd still pass laws that piss you off. We'd still pass laws that require public funding. We'd still pass laws to punish those who would shirk their obligations. And you'd still hate it.

Those who disagree with the system are allowed to object—to a point. However, if they shirk their obligations they must expect to be punished in exactly the way the law describes. If they wish it to be otherwise, they should try to change that. (As I respect you for doing.) But they're not going to get very far, because it is impractical for a government to work by subscription.

Hypatian wrote:
When the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were written (speaking of the U.S. in particular now), we established a system by which laws can be established and enforced.

Again, who is "we"? A handful of rich white landowners?

For f*ck's sake. Seriously? f*cking seriously?

Hypatian wrote:
Liberty is something you have when everybody is as free as possible to do everything they want without interfering in the ability of others to have that same freedom.

I agree - so why again are we taxing people to pay for, say, public schools? Does the lack of public schools somehow interfere with people's liberty to be educated, or not, as they see fit? Or vice-versa?

Yes. The lack of good public schools interferes with the liberty of those who are born into poor stations in life. The lack of compulsory schooling for children interferes with the liberty of those who have parents who don't wish their children to be educated. (Children have liberty too, even if they don't understand what that means yet. They don't have the liberty to choose not to be educated—we consider that to be too important, and in general reserve certain liberties from children until they're mature enough to understand and apply them. But their parents only hold the childrens' well-being in trust. In our society, we have established that they have a legal obligation to see to their childrens' well-being, and if they don't satisfy that obligation they may lose custody of their children. That well-being includes education.)

Aetius wrote:

It's a sad historical fact that they likely didn't find it, but rather took it by force - repeatedly over the course of centuries.

The "they" who I was talking about in "they found it" would have been the aboriginal human populations who first made claim to the land.

Aetius wrote:

That doesn't mean that such actions should be conscionable now, nor that the initial taking was right. We can't easily undo the mistakes of the past, but we can allow them to be corrected over time. By protecting property rights we can eventually reach a much more reasonable distribution, as has been accomplished painfully in the U.S. over the last hundred years or so with regard to blacks owning property. We're well past homesteading and claiming unowned land at this point (for the most part). However, such things will again become crucial when we start to colonize the Moon and other planets. (In which case, yes, the first people to homestead a particular plot of land should own it, because it was previously unowned.)

So: We've got our property now, we should be allowed to keep it? Why should the default assumption be that if you claim it you own it? What if two people claim it and then later discover they both have a claim. How would they establish who actually owns it? What if you can't come to an agreement? Is it fair to use force to back up your claim?

What does it mean that a plot of land on the moon "previously unowned"? Does that mean I should be able to claim land on the moon [em]right now[/em]? What if I land on the moon and claim the whole f*cking thing? Who decides if I get to keep it?

How is it a strawman when you just said that it wasn't unreasonable to kill someone because they refused to pay taxes, and the taxes are used for public schools and enforcing attendance?

He didn't say that. He noted that it's reasonable to kill someone who presents an immediate danger to the lives of others in the vicinity. That's not in any way the same statement you made above.

I think income tax is a poor example. You could consider the income tax as a fee for the service of contract law that protects that you need to be paid for hours worked.

Libertarian-ism without strong contract law will fall into anarchy. As someone who supports limited government I really see the duties of the government as follows:

1. Establish a base line for meeting necessities of citizens.
2. Establish a just enforcement of contract law and protection of life/property
3. National Defense
4. Foreign Treaties

Just about everything else should shift downward. The closer regulations are to the state/local level, the more impact an individual citizen can have on their situation.

Hypatian wrote:

What does it mean that a plot of land on the moon "previously unowned"? Does that mean I should be able to claim land on the moon [em]right now[/em]? What if I land on the moon and claim the whole f*cking thing? Who decides if I get to keep it?

Whoever if it comes to a brawl would win. That's historically pretty clear.

bandit0013 wrote:

The closer regulations are to the state/local level, the more impact an individual citizen can have on their situation.

This might be the best reasoning behind this kind of view point I've ever seen.

gregrampage wrote:
bandit0013 wrote:

The closer regulations are to the state/local level, the more impact an individual citizen can have on their situation.

This might be the best reasoning behind this kind of view point I've ever seen.

Thanks, I'm not a libertarian though. I just always prefer my government closer where feasible and would prefer my tax dollars to be spent where I have maximum control over them, though a state is a good unit I think.

I'd love to see the federal government paired back to what I said above and see the tax structure instead of being fed > state > local as far as payment to being state > local > fed.

I agree and disagree. I think you want both kinds of regulations. The more local things are, the more you have populations that are directly impacted and interested in problems that show up. That puts them in a great place to want to regulate well and to do so. On the other hand, once a problem is well-known and the solution space has been probed, it's good for regulations to spread to a larger area.

One reason is that things that need to be regulated are rarely as localized as all that--safe drinking water problems due to factories may be something one locality has a lot of experience with and cares a lot about, but in the end every place needs to have good rules for that.

Another reason is that political boundaries do not keep out the effects of bad behavior, even if bad behavior is prohibited within them. The simplest example is environmental pollution--air and water pollution spread with no regard for political boundaries. So if the next county over lets you burn your toxic crap, your county's regulation about air pollution won't help. But it applies in other places, too. Prohibiting sub-prime loans in your local area wouldn't stop a bank from using them in other places, and then when that bank goes TU because of them, it'll hurt your area, too. (You could potentially forbid any bank with such practices elsewhere from doing business in your area, but I'm not sure that would fly. Also hard to check and enforce.)

A third reason is that until a larger field is covered, having stricter regulations potentially hurts your area economically as you encourage bad actors to relocate. If they don't have to relocate very far, this can be very very cheap. The larger the area that a regulation covers, the more expensive moving operations will be.

So I think it's pretty natural to expect regulations to begin at a smaller local or regional level and then spread to larger areas (not just other areas) as approval of the measures grow. (If you just have all the counties do it individually, then an individual rural county might say "we care more about the income from a polluting plant than about the downwind stuff that only effects that city in the next county over.") In fact, I suspect it's natural for the higher levels of government to add common regulations simply because adjudicating conflicts between different localities is annoying. ("Okay, here's the state air quality standard. You can have your own county standard that's stricter, but you don't get to complain to us any more about your neighbor's standards or enforcement as long as they're keeping up to the state standard.")

From this whole type of thing, I'd say that one of the more dangerous things I've seen larger governments do is to try to force smaller governments *not* to regulate what they want to. Whether it's the federal government being lobbied to prevent California from having stricter clean air standards, or the state government here in Pennsylvania being lobbied to prevent county and local governments from establishing stricter rules to prevent or control fracking.

In short: it is appropriate for regulation to happen at all levels of government. But broader levels shouldn't be allowed to prevent smaller levels from enforcing tougher regulations--except when it violates core standards like constitutional protections. (i.e. "Yes, you can have stricter air pollution standards", but "No, you can't forbid miscegenation.")

Aetius wrote:
Kraint wrote:

Measurably, how are annual income/property taxes different from a fee-for-use for the military protection, social safety net, and/or public services/facilities we have every day?

If I understand your question correctly, the primary difference is that fees-for-use imply a specific service that's being provided, while income taxes and property taxes are not associated with a specific service. Fee-for-use is both more transparent, and less likely to result in aggression - you can turn the water off, rather than evicting people from their homes. Of course, fee-for-use systems are usually monopolistic in our current system, which results in bizarre situations like letting people's houses burn while the firemen watch; or situations like Social Security, in which the fees paid are not invested but are instead appropriated for other uses.

Fee-for-use for things that you actively use (DMV, ID services, utilities, etc.) works fine, and going with that model could well increase transparency. But for something like a national military or federal court, you never really 'use' it. I'm not sure how the fee-for-use model would scale. My question was comparing taxes to a bundled fee for all of those services, rather than trying to track dozens of fees for passive improvements/services each year. I know that you are not a fan of many of the services/benefits offered, but I don't see dealing with a road fee, a navy fee, a coast guard fee, an FBI fee, a Supreme Court fee, an army fee, etc. as being a more efficient or fair approach.

Even in the much more limited government you mention, fees for pan-national services would have to be non-voluntary or a significant portion of the populace is going to skip paying them.

Libertarians would view the latter as the preferable situation, as it does not involve aggression against those who disagree. It's even arguable whether or not pan-national services would even need to exist. For example, national defense could be potentially be served in peacetime by local volunteer militias, with professional mercenaries being hired in the event of an actual war.

I think I may have been unclear. I understand the theory behind what you would like to see, but I don't see how it can function in real implementation. A militia, filled with and funded by a relative handful of volunteers who have to work regular jobs will be utterly unable to contest a modern professional military. And that volunteer funding cannot feasibly cover a permanent mercenary class. Given the choice between paying for something for the common good and not paying, too many people with too little foresight will keep their money. I see some merits in your philosophy, but you have to remember that people are, generally speaking, terrible people, and structure around that.

Taxation would appear to be equivalent to the insurance model, wherein you pay for membership regardless of your usage of any particular service during the year. If you don't pay your annual insurance, your coverage is removed. Since the government lacks a viable means of determining who has purchased coverage, how is it unreasonable to enforce payment through civil actions and, if need be, criminal charges/detainment?

It's unreasonable because the citizens never "purchased" membership, it was forced upon them. Consider the Mafia's "insurance" plan - is it reasonable to pay so that your business doesn't mysteriously burn down? It's not the fault of citizens that government can't tell who paid and who didn't - no private company has that problem. Further, even when governments permit people to opt out, they often don't permit competitive services to fill the gap, leading to people being left without options they would otherwise have.

Now here is my fundamental disagreement with your position. If you are over 18, you absolutely *have* purchased membership. You use the infrastructure, enjoy the police and military protection, benefit from the clean air and water, had the option of attending the free schools, and so forth. You also have the freedom to switch providers (emigrate) at any time if you find somewhere you like better. Your parents bought in, and you were (involuntarily) covered by their plan until you reached adulthood. After that, you are free to move to anywhere that will take you. What you (and many, many other people at every point on the political spectrum) are missing/leaving out of the narrative is that the coverage plan was built, willingly and actively, but people over the past ~250 years. This wasn't a subtle and surprise plan to takeover a small town by some malicious oil baron. Every state in the union voted itself in and actively participates in governance.

I guess my issue with all of this boils down to two factors.
1. Efficiency and implementation - lots of things in the libertarian sound great, but I just don't understand how they can be implemented in a way that keeps costs flat/reduces them, allows for people to continue enjoying the services/benefits they have now if they so desire, and doesn't end with us being owned by bigger fish (wealthy individuals/corporations, other nations, local warlords).
2. The push to implement fundamental changes from the top down. It never seems to be about slowly opening things up or allowing people to opt out of services at a local level, it is always about getting someone to close down the EPA, SEC, FCC, FTC, DoEnergy, DoEducation, Social Security, Medicare, and DoT immediately. I just don't see how it can be for freedom when the first action is to end things that people wanted and organized to put in place.

P.S.- Don't take the above as any endorsement of the implementation of our government right now. I can give a long, long list of things that are wrong with the current system. But those are issues with who we have running the show, who decides who runs it, the quality and interest levels of voters, and other implementation issues. The fundamental system of shared responsibility and shared benefits/rights is as good a system I've seen when dealing with the failings of humanity.

Kraint wrote:
Aetius wrote:

It's unreasonable because the citizens never "purchased" membership, it was forced upon them. Consider the Mafia's "insurance" plan - is it reasonable to pay so that your business doesn't mysteriously burn down? It's not the fault of citizens that government can't tell who paid and who didn't - no private company has that problem. Further, even when governments permit people to opt out, they often don't permit competitive services to fill the gap, leading to people being left without options they would otherwise have.

Now here is my fundamental disagreement with your position. If you are over 18, you absolutely *have* purchased membership. You use the infrastructure, enjoy the police and military protection, benefit from the clean air and water, had the option of attending the free schools, and so forth. You also have the freedom to switch providers (emigrate) at any time if you find somewhere you like better. Your parents bought in, and you were (involuntarily) covered by their plan until you reached adulthood. After that, you are free to move to anywhere that will take you. What you (and many, many other people at every point on the political spectrum) are missing/leaving out of the narrative is that the coverage plan was built, willingly and actively, by people over the past ~250 years. This wasn't a subtle and surprise plan to takeover a small town by some malicious oil baron. Every state in the union voted itself in and actively participates in governance.

The subtle and surprise plan is to turn what was a government into a club; to turn citizenship (in fact, to turn simple residence) into membership. What you're missing/leaving out is that people weren't just building a coverage plan over the past ~250 years: people were building a country to do things such as protect their unalienable Rights.

I'm not saying it's impossible to make an argument that Libertarians are wrong about most government being an unacceptable infringement on those unalienable Rights; what I'm saying is you can't pretend that the idea of the distinction between a club and a government was not part of the deal from the start.

CheezePavilion wrote:

you can't pretend that the idea of the distinction between a club and a government was not part of the deal from the start.

Unless you count the actions of the Federalists, anyway. They were frequently distrusted by those espousing republican ideals, and believed to be trying to establish a new aristocracy.

Which is to say: Yes, republican ideals were enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, but so were federalist ideals. And people were fighting about the correct balance before the ink was dry. (And in fact before the ink was on paper.)

Hypatian wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

you can't pretend that the idea of the distinction between a club and a government was not part of the deal from the start.

Unless you count the actions of the Federalists, anyway. They were frequently distrusted by those espousing republican ideals, and believed to be trying to establish a new aristocracy.

A government that is an aristocracy is even less like a club than a government that is a republic. In other words, your criticism of my counter-argument is an even more potent criticism of the original argument I was in disagreement with than the criticism I made.

Er. I don't understand what you mean by a club, then. In my mind, an aristocracy is pretty much [em]exactly[/em] a government that is a club.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Hypatian wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

you can't pretend that the idea of the distinction between a club and a government was not part of the deal from the start.

Unless you count the actions of the Federalists, anyway. They were frequently distrusted by those espousing republican ideals, and believed to be trying to establish a new aristocracy.

A government that is an aristocracy is even less like a club than a government that is a republic. In other words, your criticism of my counter-argument is an even more potent criticism of the original argument I was in disagreement with than the criticism I made.

[16:15] <+Tanglebones> Goodjer: In other words, your criticism of my counter-argument is an even more potent criticism of the original argument I was in disagreement with than the criticism I made.
[16:15] <+Goodjer> Tanglebones: I saw the pic was in disagreement with than the criticism i made this in 2.25. My brain!
Hypatian wrote:

Er. I don't understand what you mean by a club, then. In my mind, an aristocracy is pretty much [em]exactly[/em] a government that is a club.

If so, aristocracy is a club that claims the right to order around non-members. That's not the kind of club Kraint was talking about.

In other words, as I understand what I've read, Kraint's criticism of Aetius' Libertarianism is that government is a voluntary club. My criticism of Kraint's criticism is that some of Kraint's facts are wrong. You're telling me that my facts are wrong, but if what you say is true, Kraint's still got the facts wrong--even more wrong, in fact, than I was saying.

In short, I see no need to go into a discussion of Federalism in early America when even if you turn out to be right, I still turn out to also be right about Kraint being wrong. I'm glad to agree with you for now because, if accurate, what you say accomplishes my goals even more completely than my own argument.

Ahh. I took your meaning to be an exclusive club of the ruling elite. Sorry for not reading closely enough—looking back, that's obviously not what you meant.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

Er. I don't understand what you mean by a club, then. In my mind, an aristocracy is pretty much [em]exactly[/em] a government that is a club.

If so, aristocracy is a club that claims the right to order around non-members. That's not the kind of club Kraint was talking about.

In other words, as I understand what I've read, Kraint's criticism of Aetius' Libertarianism is that government is a voluntary club. My criticism of Kraint's criticism is that some of Kraint's facts are wrong. You're telling me that my facts are wrong, but if what you say is true, Kraint's still got the facts wrong--even more wrong, in fact, than I was saying.

In short, I see no need to go into a discussion of Federalism in early America when even if you turn out to be right, I still turn out to also be right about Kraint being wrong. I'm glad to agree with you for now because, if accurate, what you say accomplishes my goals even more completely than my own argument.

You should treat analogies as analogies, rather than asserting I am wrong.

Edited to add:
The services we have agreed upon, and the method for paying for them, is only one facet of what our government is. I was asking narrowly about what I see as flaws in plans to implement libertarian policies, and how they would be addressed.

I will let anyone else who reads this thread evaluate it based on the merits of your argument, because I think you have in that one post amply demonstrated the faults of that form of libertarianism. I remain astonished that anyone can espouse these ideas and believe that they are compatible with [em]any[/em] definition of "liberty", much less that they provide the preferred definition.

Hypatian wrote:

Very simply, because a [em]normal[/em] person can tell the difference between the two scenarios, and doesn't believe that they're somehow the same because there's an outside chance they could come to the same end result. Either you're disingenuously claiming that these two things are the same for the purposes of supporting your argument, or you can't tell the difference between the two scenarios (unlike the vast majority of humanity). Which is it?

My argument is indeed that there is no difference, and that the vast majority of humanity makes an exception for the group of humans called "government" that is unwarranted. Government does things that, undertaken by anyone else, would be considered theft, and rightly so. What grants government agents this right? The consent of the governed, right?. The only problem is that, historically, the governed are unable to withdraw that consent without violence - so really, it's the same old hitting people over the head with rocks until they give in.

Why is the same scenario, but with different aggressors, considered theft, while the government not only gets a pass but is considered to be doing the right thing?

Hypatian wrote:

No. The individual belongs to a society, and must live by the rules of that society.

Which society? And who determines who belongs to which society? Oh that's right, that would be the people in the group known as "government", wouldn't it? Without choice, "belonging to a society" is meaningless - it's nothing more than being a subject, a peasant, with no rights as an individual.

And again, who is doing the escalating? Not the individual - he or she just wants to be left alone. It's the government that wants to take what isn't theirs.

Hypatian wrote:

At the most basic: they are required to follow the law, or they are subject to penalties. They know the law, they know the penalties. They have the choice.

What choice? Again, how is a choice of being imprisoned or killed a "choice"? Such a choice is the "choice" presented by a criminal - hand over the goods or get attacked. It's a poor, inefficient, inhumane, and brutal way to run a society.

At every step, the individual in question is placing their own needs over the needs of the community, and because of that the community takes steps to punish that behavior—because if that behavior is allowed, the community breaks down because nobody is paying the bills any more.

The individual did nothing. It was the "community" - in reality, a small group of people who claim to represent the community - that attacked the individual seeking to take his labor or property, not the other way around. What claim does the community have on the individual's self-ownership?

The individual is the one choosing to place their own welfare above that of the community, and infringing on the liberties of their neighbors by forcing them to shoulder an unfair portion of the community's burdens.

Again, the individual did not place anything above anything - it was the "community" who decided to take what isn't theirs. Again, what claim does the "community" - the small group of people in government - have on the property or lives of the individual or his neighbors? In rejecting the "community's" aggression, the individual cannot be held responsible for the other crimes the "community" commits, no more so than the individual would be responsible for the actions of a serial killer on the other side of the planet.

In our system: the right of self-rule.

Self-rule of whom, by whom? It's not self-rule when one group is ruling another without their consent. It's just ruling.

The government is composed of the people, it's not some alien thing that comes in and makes sh*t up.

No - the government is composed of a small group of people in a society. It is not composed of all the people. And in fact that small group of people does make sh*t up most of the time, because they are incapable of understanding the varied needs and desires of millions of people.

It is the means by which we make rules for the good of the group instead of the good of the individual.

Well that's the rub, isn't it? Who gets to decide what the "greater good" is? And what happens to the people who disagree?

Members of society have given up their right to use those drugs in exchange for being protected from others using those drugs.

Perhaps some members have, but others have not - and the people who disagree get attacked repeatedly for it. It would be more accurate to say that some members of society have decided that all members of society will give up their rights to use those drugs, and they are willing to use violent aggression to punish those who disagree.

There's an additional question of whether or not drug abuse in others is something people need to be protected against—but that's not a question of whether there is liberty or not, that's a question of whether the law is a good law or not.

On the contrary, it is the fundamental question of liberty. Does a person own themselves, or not? Are they responsible for themselves, or must they be protected from themselves like a child?

If people don't have influence on the government, then the government is broken. Not "all governments", just that one.

Do you know of a government that is able to achieve 100% agreement from all citizens? No? Then all governments are, in fact, broken. The reality is that there is always a minority, or even a majority, that disagrees. This group has the government decisions forced down their throat whether they like it or not.

Further, the larger a government gets, the less influence any one citizen has. Yes, you can vote - but your vote matters very little. What other influence do you have? Do you have lots of money? Can you offer something to a government member they want? No? Then you have little influence.

The problem is that the will of the people is imperfectly expressed.

No, the problem is that the "will of the people" is not a single entity. There are as many "wills of the people" as there are people. It can never be perfectly expressed, because 100% of the people will never agree on anything - hell, it's rare to even see 50% of the people agree on anything.

In reality, the "will of the people" fills the same gap in modern society that "divine right to rule" filled in medieval society - it's a convenient fiction that helps keep the masses from revolting against their rulers.

Even if it were perfectly expressed, we'd still pass laws that piss you off. We'd still pass laws that require public funding. We'd still pass laws to punish those who would shirk their obligations. And you'd still hate it.

Then how can it be perfectly expressed? I am part of the people. How can the "will of the people" not include my will?

Hypatian wrote:

When the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were written (speaking of the U.S. in particular now), we established a system by which laws can be established and enforced.

Again, who is "we"? A handful of rich white landowners?

For f*ck's sake. Seriously? f*cking seriously?

Yes, seriously. You've already criticized property owners, yet you're immediately willing to subject yourself to a government that was created by rich property owners, expressly to rule the land they had just forcibly ejected another set of rulers from. That the yoke they created was light is, for this discussion, beside the point. What right did they have to impose that government on those who voted against it?

The lack of good public schools interferes with the liberty of those who are born into poor stations in life.

How? Simply because they lack options that would otherwise be available to someone better educated? Why then don't you guarantee a Harvard education and a yacht, because the lack of those two things obviously limits those born poor! In fact, the lack of public schools does not infringe on the liberty of anyone. Liberty is the freedom to do what you will as long as you don't interfere with the rights of others. It is not the means to do so - especially when that means is forcibly extracted from others.

Hypatian wrote:
It's a sad historical fact that they likely didn't find it, but rather took it by force - repeatedly over the course of centuries.

The "they" who I was talking about in "they found it" would have been the aboriginal human populations who first made claim to the land.

If that's true, then yes, the first people to homestead such property should have the ownership of it. It has rarely worked out that way historically, usually due to various governments laying claim to it.

Why should the default assumption be that if you claim it you own it?

Because the only other assumption is that no one can own anything - see the aforementioned problems. Certainly, the people who were here before the European settlers felt they "owned" the land, enough so to die for it in large numbers. So, yes, if you're the first to claim it, then you own it.

What if two people claim it and then later discover they both have a claim. How would they establish who actually owns it? What if you can't come to an agreement? Is it fair to use force to back up your claim?

That's the reason that clear property rights are important - precisely to reduce the incidence of situations like that. This is also what courts are for, private or government. The only fair use of force would be defensively, if one side was attempting to settle the matter by aggression and take away the claim of the other.

What does it mean that a plot of land on the moon "previously unowned"? Does that mean I should be able to claim land on the moon [em]right now[/em]? What if I land on the moon and claim the whole f*cking thing? Who decides if I get to keep it?

Well, aside from the many historical attempts to do exactly that in the name of governments both on the Moon and around the world, a more sensible approach would be to base ownership on first use - mixing of labor with resources. So if you did land on the Moon, and put some of the land to use, then that should be considered yours. Claiming the whole planet doesn't make sense, because you aren't using it and can't use it - you're acting like a government.

Hypatian wrote:

I will let anyone else who reads this thread evaluate it based on the merits of your argument, because I think you have in that one post amply demonstrated the faults of that form of libertarianism. I remain astonished that anyone can espouse these ideas and believe that they are compatible with [em]any[/em] definition of "liberty", much less that they provide the preferred definition.

Can you be more specific on that point? I think what Aetius is arguing for is essentially impossible. In a vacuum I think that inevitably people will choose to form some type of government to provide a common set of rules at the very least. To ensure that they aren't run over by their fellow man.

Otherwise, though, I find it hard to argue with much of what he said. Without a violent overthrow can people remove their system of government? By its very nature government becomes a system of control that's self-perpetuating. It's a pretty damn bleak way to look at the world, but it's reality.

I thought he pretty much demolished your position, Hypatian. You invent the idea of 'the group' and the 'the will of the group', when it may not even be the will of the majority, and the minority may not even want to be part of the group in the first place.... and then use those ideas as pretexts for initiating violence to take things away from people.

He pretty much nailed you to the wall, pointed out the hypocrisy in your ideas. The fact that you don't want to deal with those hypocrisies doesn't mean they don't exist.

Robear wrote:
How is it a strawman when you just said that it wasn't unreasonable to kill someone because they refused to pay taxes, and the taxes are used for public schools and enforcing attendance?

He didn't say that. He noted that it's reasonable to kill someone who presents an immediate danger to the lives of others in the vicinity. That's not in any way the same statement you made above.

But who presents the immediate danger? It was not the individual who created that situation - it was the group of people called "government" who escalated the situation into a violent one in their attempt to acquire property. The individual did nothing aggressive, and his neighbors have no reason to fear him - unlike the government agents. It is indeed logically the same, just as if a thief demanded that someone do something, and then attacked them when they didn't comply. Is the victim then responsible for what the thief does?

Malor wrote:

I thought he pretty much demolished your position, Hypatian. You invent the idea of 'the group' and the 'the will of the group', when it may not even be the will of the majority, and the minority may not even want to be part of the group in the first place.... and then use those ideas as pretexts for initiating violence to take things away from people.

He pretty much nailed you to the wall, pointed out the hypocrisy in your ideas. The fact that you don't want to deal with those hypocrisies doesn't mean they don't exist.

Nope. He described an entirely impractical form of government where apparently everyone has to agree to everything before it can be considered just. And every generation has to do the same.

The reality is that you are born into the community of your parents and you have to live with the rules that were established long before you were squeezed out. Once you get old enough you can choose to either stay or go. But you don't get to claim that every community rule or law passed before you were alive doesn't apply to you because you personally didn't approve of them.

So, in other words, parents can enter into agreements that bind you?